, than either
of them; but we doubt whether any men have, in modern times, exercised
such vast personal influence over stormy and divided assemblies. The
power of both was as much moral as intellectual. In true dignity of
character, in private and public virtue, it may seem absurd to institute
any comparison between them; but they had the same haughtiness and
vehemence of temper. In their language and manner there was a disdainful
self-confidence, an imperiousness, a fierceness of passion, before which
all common minds quailed. Even Murray and Charles Townshend, though
intellectually not inferior to Chatham, were always cowed by him.
Barnave, in the same manner, though the best debater in the National
Assembly, flinched before the energy of Mirabeau. Men, except in bad
novels, are not all good or all evil. It can scarcely be denied that the
virtue of Lord Chatham was a little theatrical. On the other hand there
was in Mirabeau, not indeed anything deserving the name of virtue,
but that imperfect substitute for virtue which is found in almost all
superior minds,--a sensibility to the beautiful and the good, which
sometimes amounted to sincere enthusiasm; and which, mingled with
the desire of admiration, sometimes gave to his character a lustre
resembling the lustre of true goodness,--as the "faded splendour wan"
which lingered round the fallen archangel resembled the exceeding
brightness of those spirits who had kept their first estate.

There are several other admirable portraits of eminent men in these
Memoirs. That of Sieyes in particular, and that of Talleyrand, are
master-pieces, full of life and expression. But nothing in the book has
interested us more than the view which M. Dumont has presented to us,
unostentatiously, and, we may say, unconsciously, of his own character.
The sturdy rectitude, the large charity, the good-nature, the modesty,
the independent spirit, the ardent philanthropy, the unaffected
indifference to money and to fame, make up a character which, while it
has nothing unnatural, seems to us to approach nearer to perfection than
any of the Grandisons and Allworthys of fiction. The work is not indeed
precisely such a work as we had anticipated--it is more lively, more
picturesque, more amusing than we had promised ourselves; and it is, on
the other hand, less profound and philosophic. But, if it is not, in
all respects, such as might have been expected from the intellect of M.
Dumont, it is assure