anner contributed, by their life and
example, to shape the multiform character of England. Of these, probably
the most influential were the men of the Elizabethan and Cromwellian,
and the intermediate periods--amongst which we find the great names of
Shakspeare, Raleigh, Burleigh, Sidney, Bacon, Milton, Herbert, Hampden,
Pym, Eliot, Vane, Cromwell, and many more--some of them men of great
force, and others of great dignity and purity of character. The lives of
such men have become part of the public life of England, and their deeds
and thoughts are regarded as among the most cherished bequeathments from
the past.

So Washington left behind him, as one of the greatest treasures of his
country, the example of a stainless life--of a great, honest, pure, and
noble character--a model for his nation to form themselves by in all
time to come. And in the case of Washington, as in so many other great
leaders of men, his greatness did not so much consist in his intellect,
his skill, and his genius, as in his honour, his integrity, his
truthfulness, his high and controlling sense of duty--in a word, in his
genuine nobility of character.

Men such as these are the true lifeblood of the country to which they
belong. They elevate and uphold it, fortify and ennoble it, and shed
a glory over it by the example of life and character which they have
bequeathed. "The names and memories of great men," says an able writer,
"are the dowry of a nation. Widowhood, overthrow, desertion, even
slavery, cannot take away from her this sacred inheritance.... Whenever
national life begins to quicken.... the dead heroes rise in the memories
of men, and appear to the living to stand by in solemn spectatorship and
approval. No country can be lost which feels herself overlooked by such
glorious witnesses. They are the salt of the earth, in death as well as
in life. What they did once, their descendants have still and always
a right to do after them; and their example lives in their country, a
continual stimulant and encouragement for him who has the soul to adopt
it." [1020]

But it is not great men only that have to be taken into account in
estimating the qualities of a nation, but the character that pervades
the great body of the people. When Washington Irving visited Abbotsford,
Sir Walter Scott introduced him to many of his friends and favourites,
not only amongst the neighbouring farmers, but the labouring peasantry.
"I wish to show you," said Sco