not prepared to say that Knox had a soft temper; nor do I know that he
had what we call an ill-temper. An ill nature he decidedly had not.
Kind honest affections dwell in the much-enduring, hard-worn,
ever-battling man. That he _could_ rebuke Queens, and had such weight
among those proud turbulent Nobles, proud enough whatever else they
were; and could maintain to the end a kind of virtual Presidency and
Sovereignty in that wild realm, he who was only 'a subject born within
the same:' this of itself will prove to us that he was found, close at
hand, to be no mean acrid man; but at heart a healthful, strong,
sagacious man. Such alone can bear rule in that kind. They blame him
for pulling-down cathedrals, and so forth, as if he were a seditious
rioting demagogue: precisely the reverse is seen to be the fact, in
regard to cathedrals and the rest of it, if we examine! Knox wanted no
pulling-down of stone edifices; he wanted leprosy and darkness to be
thrown out of the lives of men. Tumult was not his element; it was the
tragic feature of his life that he was forced to dwell so much in
that. Every such man is the born enemy of Disorder; hates to be in it:
but what then? Smooth Falsehood is not Order; it is the general
sum-total of _Dis_order. Order is _Truth_,--each thing standing on the
basis that belongs to it: Order and Falsehood cannot subsist together.

Withal, unexpectedly enough, this Knox has a vein of drollery in him;
which I like much, in combination with his other qualities. He has a
true eye for the ridiculous. His _History_, with its rough
earnestness, is curiously enlivened with this. When the two Prelates,
entering Glasgow Cathedral, quarrel about precedence; march rapidly
up, take to hustling one another, twitching one another's rochets, and
at last flourishing their crosiers like quarter-staves, it is a great
sight for him everyway! Not mockery, scorn, bitterness alone; though
there is enough of that too. But a true, loving, illuminating laugh
mounts-up over the earnest visage; not a loud laugh; you would say, a
laugh in the _eyes_ most of all. An honest-hearted, brotherly man;
brother to the high, brother also to the low; sincere in his sympathy
with both. He has his pipe of Bourdeaux too, we find, in that old
Edinburgh house of his; a cheery social man, with faces that loved
him! They go far wrong who think this Knox was a gloomy, spasmodic,
shrieking fanatic. Not at all: he is one of the solidest of men.