nal Vigour, through
which the sinews of England were not then forced to give proof of their
highest power of endurance. All was a struggle of the elements; in which
every shroud and tackle of the royal ship of England was strained; and
the tempest lasted through nearly a quarter of a century. England, the
defender of all, was the sufferer for all. Every principle of her
financial prosperity, every material of her military prowess, every
branch of her constitutional system, every capacity of her political
existence, her Church, her State, and her Legislature, were successively
compelled into the most perilous yet most powerful display; and the
close of the most furious hostility which Europe had ever seen, only
exhibited in a loftier point of view the victorious strength which
principle confers upon a people.

Compared with this tremendous scene, the political conflicts of the
preceding age were a battle on the stage, compared with the terrors of
the field. The spectators came to enjoy a Spectacle, and sit tranquilly
admiring the brilliancy of the caparisons and the dexterity of the
charge; but perfectly convinced that all would end without harm to the
champions, and that the fall of the curtain would extinguish the war.
But, in the trials of the later time, there were moments when we seemed
to be throwing our last stake; when the trumpets of Europe, leagued
against us, seemed to be less challenging us to the field, than
preceding us to the tomb; and when the last hope of the wise and good
might be, to give the last manifestation of a life of patriotic virtue.

In language like this, we are not abasing the national courage. We are
paying the fullest homage to the substantial claims of the English
heart. It is only by the severest national struggles that the
superiority of national powers can be developed; and without doubting
the qualities of the Marlboroughs and Chathams--or even without
doubting, that if thrown into the battle of the last fifty years, they
would have exhibited the same intellectual stature and powerful
adroitness which distinguished their actual displays--yet they wanted
the strong necessities of a time like ours, to place them on a similar
height of renown. Still their time continues in admirable study. But it
is like the story of the Volscian and Samnite combats, read in the day
when the consul, flying through the streets of Rome, brought the news of
Cannae.

The wars and politics of the eighteent