m and stirred the depths of his soul with
magnificent, though exaggerated, hopes in the destiny of his race. He
identified himself with the people; his stout heart beat loud in their
stormy cause. His compositions, if they wanted that knowledge of men,
that subtle comprehension of the true state of parties, that
happy temperance in which the crowning wisdom of statesmen must
consist,--qualities which experience alone can give,--excited
considerable attention by their bold eloquence and hardy logic.
They were suited to the time. But John Ardworth had that solidity of
understanding which betokens more than talent, and which is the usual
substratum of genius. He would not depend alone on the precarious and
often unhonoured toils of polemical literature for that distinction on
which he had fixed his steadfast heart. Patiently he plodded on through
the formal drudgeries of his new profession, lighting up dulness by his
own acute comprehension, weaving complexities into simple system by the
grasp of an intellect inured to generalize, and learning to love even
what was most distasteful, by the sense of difficulty overcome, and the
clearer vision which every step through the mists and up the hill gave
of the land beyond. Of what the superficial are apt to consider genius,
John Ardworth had but little. He had some imagination (for a true
thinker is never without that), but he had a very slight share of fancy.
He did not flirt with the Muses; on the granite of his mind few flowers
could spring. His style, rushing and earnest, admitted at times of a
humour not without delicacy,--though less delicate than forcible and
deep,--but it was little adorned with wit, and still less with poetry.
Yet Ardworth had genius, and genius ample and magnificent. There was
genius in that industrious energy so patient in the conquest of detail,
so triumphant in the perception of results. There was genius in that
kindly sympathy with mankind; genius in that stubborn determination to
succeed; genius in that vivid comprehension of affairs, and the large
interests of the world; genius fed in the labours of the closet, and
evinced the instant he was brought into contact with men,--evinced
in readiness of thought, grasp of memory, even in a rough, imperious
nature, which showed him born to speak strong truths, and in their name
to struggle and command.

Rough was this man often in his exterior, though really gentle and
kind-hearted. John Ardworth had sacri