A ruffled temper, acrimony, passionate excitement, which leads to extravagant expectation or depression of spirits, are no more injurious in the private sphere than in politics; whether we consider the citizen in the primary relations of the state, or as representative, officer or statesman proper. But calmness of mind is a quality which can, and therefore must be cultivated, although it is true that some individuals are originally endowed with tempers which make it easier or more difficult to attain to this exalted virtue. Some of the greatest men, and those who have distinguished themselves most signally in this very particular, have, according to their own confession, not possessed it by nature. Washington-and can a greater example of calmness be cited?-is said to have naturally possessed an excitable temper. Socrates we know had often to struggle against passion, but he did it successfully. Reflect, on the other hand, on men so bountifully endowed as Alcibiades or Byron, and yet so wayward in their life, brilliant like a meteor indeed, but not blessing by a regular course like the sun. This cultivation of calmness, however, as has been mentioned already, ought to begin early, so that by degrees and perseverance it become another, and our truest nature.

XVII. I purpose to consider the absence of the calmness of soul in four effects chiefly, namely, fretfulness, discontent, inconsistency and obstinacy, the counterfeit of perseverance.

The first, that is, fretfulness, has been briefly touched upon in a previous passage. It is a sure sign either of littleness of mind or distrust in the soundness and truth of our own endeavor and object, if an over-anxious desire is manifest, of seeing every thing we hold to be good, realized at once, or if we stigmatize those who disagree from us. Cases of imminent danger, and measures which are to avert it or threaten to bring it on, are of course here excepted. A conflagration requires immediate help. Great souls, the μεγαλοψυχοι of the Greeks, who strive for the dissemination or establishment of some substantial good or truth, are not fretful; they trust; if they are thwarted they "heal their grief, for curable are the hearts of the noble," (1) and do not relax on that account. They know that victory will ultimately be theirs, or on their side, even though themselves should long have passed away. They trust in the truth of their principles and in the power of that truth; they feel convinced that if the principles are true, they will assuredly make their way and be realized in practice. Great and calm souls look upon their God, who when He created the rivers and the sea, knew that man would invent bridges, boats and sails; who when he called the earth into existence and placed man upon it, knew that the plough would be contrived in due time. Great and calm is His creation. While one tree is shattered by the lightning of the heavens, innumerable millions grow calmly and slowly; while one beast of prey pursues a weaker, myriads are born and hatched, and unfold silently the great principle of life.

Discontent and peevishness are no less an effect of the absence of true calmness, perseverance and greatness of soul. In all free countries, where there are consequently parties for where there is freedom of action on a large scale, there is also contest of action, in politics no more than in science, literature or any other sphere of activity, although we use the term party for politics chiefly, and the words schools, sects or similar terms for the other spheres a class of men will be found, who, if defeated in a favorite measure, will retire in discontent and peevishness, treating the existing state of things with disdain, as if all wisdom and disinterested virtue were on their own side, and none on the other, people who perhaps with a homely but appropriate name, might be called political grumblers (grondeurs and frondeurs), and who cannot summon up sufficient resolution to consider a question as settled, be the evidence ever so strong. They frequently show by their own conduct, that their sympathy was never truly with the people, and that, therefore, the withdrawal of support was not so ill founded. They ought to recollect, however, that whether their retirement be seriously felt at the moment or not, certain it is that soon they will be forgotten, and society will learn to do without them. When Walpole saw he could not carry the excise bill, that, such as the combined circumstances were, the nation would not take it, he manfully abandoned it, not indeed his conviction that it would have been beneficial, but, good or bad, the nation would not have it, and he left it to his adversaries themselves to acknowledge the soundness of his proposal, which Pitt, afterwards lord Chatham, one of its most strenuous opposers, did not fail solemnly to do, in the commons, when Walpole rested in the grave. Retiring in peevishness may lead to various political evils; and the first which naturally presents itself to our mind, is this, that if those who have gained the victory over you are really a badly-intentioned faction, without knowledge or principle, and whatever else you may charge them with, you only increase their power by your sullen withdrawal. If you are convinced of the truth of your cause, stick to the

vessel of public welfare to the last, and show to the people that you really desire the good of the country, and not your own advancement, by that buoyancy and indomitableness of spirit which, whatever fate your cause may have met with, cannot be defeated, because it flows from the correctness of your cause and will attain for you the esteem of all, your adversaries not excepted.

When, in the year 1739, the British tory opposition saw that for a long time to come there was little chance of success for them, and the convention between Spain and England was ratified by parliament, sir William Wyndham, with a number of his party, seceded, as they called it, from parliament. The consequence was, that Walpole, his opponent, went on the better for it, and the seceders soon regretted their ill-advised step. (2) I would not include in the number of peevish grumblers, the honest Jacobites of the time, for there were certainly some, though probably few. Unbounded obedience, or, as we would now term it, legitimacy above the law, had for so long a time been preached by many of the highest prelates, ready to sacrifice their station to this ill-conceived principle of religion, that it is not difficult to imagine men who conscientiously believed that the Hanoverian race were usurpers, however few Englishmen there may be now who would maintain that Great Britain would have acted wiser or better, if she had placed the pretender on the throne. Those Jacobites are not to be judged on strictly political grounds, but on those of religion and conscience; nor would we call them discontents, but rather malcontents or disaffected. They turned their face from the whole establishment of government, as we find in antiquity the malcontents sometimes leaving their country rather than submit, and planting a new country.

Political peevishness, moreover, may lead, if it is more effectual and general than it has commonly the power to be, to political apathy, one of the worst political evils, of which more will be said hereafter. Finally, if it should become almost regular and constant, it would prevent one of the requisites of a free country and peaceable government in it-a sound, lawful, temperate, yet active opposition, without which either liberty must evanesce, or open disaffection break forth. Sir Robert Peel, after having struggled to the best of his power against the reform bill-and why may we not believe that he was honest in doing so? for so essential measures will always be looked upon at the time from very different points of view-did not retire in peevishness after the defeat of his party; and when for a brief time he was called again to the helm, he declared that he considered the reform act as a thing settled and done; which henceforth must be left untouched. Lord Wellington probably disapproves, as much as any tory, of the general spirit which dictates the acts of the present Melbourn administration; yet no citizen can be farther from mere political peevishness than the duke, as, indeed, might be expected of so manly a soul. I shall consider the important subject of Opposition more fully in a future part of the work.

Most true, indeed, were the words of the weeping Persian, who saw that his countrymen were engaged in a ruinous enterprise, and that of all whom he saw with himself under the command of Mardonius, few would be living after a short time. "The bitterest grief in the whole world is that, when with all wisdom we have no