obles, proud enough whatever else they were; and could
maintain to the end a kind of virtual Presidency and Sovereignty in that
wild realm, he who was only "a subject born within the same:" this of
itself will prove to us that he was found, close at hand, to be no mean
acrid man; but at heart a healthful, strong, sagacious man. Such alone
can bear rule in that kind. They blame him for pulling down cathedrals,
and so forth, as if he were a seditious rioting demagogue: precisely the
reverse is seen to be the fact, in regard to cathedrals and the rest
of it, if we examine! Knox wanted no pulling down of stone edifices; he
wanted leprosy and darkness to be thrown out of the lives of men. Tumult
was not his element; it was the tragic feature of his life that he was
forced to dwell so much in that. Every such man is the born enemy of
Disorder; hates to be in it: but what then? Smooth Falsehood is not
Order; it is the general sum-total of Disorder. Order is _Truth_,--each
thing standing on the basis that belongs to it: Order and Falsehood
cannot subsist together.

Withal, unexpectedly enough, this Knox has a vein of drollery in him;
which I like much, in combination with his other qualities. He has a
true eye for the ridiculous. His _History_, with its rough earnestness,
is curiously enlivened with this. When the two Prelates, entering
Glasgow Cathedral, quarrel about precedence; march rapidly up, take
to hustling one another, twitching one another's rochets, and at last
flourishing their crosiers like quarter-staves, it is a great sight for
him every way! Not mockery, scorn, bitterness alone; though there is
enough of that too. But a true, loving, illuminating laugh mounts up
over the earnest visage; not a loud laugh; you would say, a laugh in
the _eyes_ most of all. An honest-hearted, brotherly man; brother to the
high, brother also to the low; sincere in his sympathy with both. He had
his pipe of Bourdeaux too, we find, in that old Edinburgh house of his;
a cheery social man, with faces that loved him! They go far wrong who
think this Knox was a gloomy, spasmodic, shrieking fanatic. Not at all:
he is one of the solidest of men. Practical, cautious-hopeful, patient;
a most shrewd, observing, quietly discerning man. In fact, he has very
much the type of character we assign to the Scotch at present: a certain
sardonic taciturnity is in him; insight enough; and a stouter heart than
he himself knows of. He has the power of holdin