in his common deportment, but relaxing with a wise
facetiousness, he knew how to relieve his mind and preserve his dignity:
for he never forfeited by a personal acquaintance that esteem he had
acquired by his great actions. Unlearned in books, he formed his
understanding by the rigid discipline of a large and complicated
experience. He knew men much, and therefore generally trusted them but
little; but when he knew any man to be good, he reposed in him an entire
confidence, which prevented his prudence from degenerating into a vice.
He had vices in his composition, and great ones; but they were the vices
of a great mind: ambition, the malady of every extensive genius,--and
avarice, the madness of the wise: one chiefly actuated his youth,--the
other governed his age. The vices of young and light minds, the joys of
wine and the pleasures of love, never reached his aspiring nature. The
general run of men he looked on with contempt, and treated with cruelty
when they opposed him. Nor was the rigor of his mind to be softened but
with the appearance of extraordinary fortitude in his enemies, which, by
a sympathy congenial to his own virtues, always excited his admiration
and insured his mercy. So that there were often seen in this one man, at
the same time, the extremes of a savage cruelty, and a generosity that
does honor to human nature. Religion, too, seemed to have a great
influence on his mind, from policy, or from better motives; but his
religion was displayed in the regularity with which he performed its
duties, not in the submission he showed to its ministers, which was
never more than what good government required. Yet his choice of a
counsellor and favorite was, not according to the mode of the time, out
of that order, and a choice that does honor to his memory. This was
Lanfranc, a man of great learning for the times, and extraordinary
piety. He owed his elevation to William; but though always inviolably
faithful, he never was the tool or flatterer of the power which raised
him; and the greater freedom he showed, the higher he rose in the
confidence of his master. By mixing with the concerns of state he did
not lose his religion and conscience, or make them the covers or
instruments of ambition; but tempering the fierce policy of a new power
by the mild lights of religion, he became a blessing to the country in
which he was promoted. The English owed to the virtue of this stranger,
and the influence he had on the ki