BIO G!-I^-^3?KCI C^^L ESS.A."2-S.
ESSAYS
BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL;
OR,
kVm a( \mi\tkx.
EY
HENRY T. TUCKERMAN.
" All my life long
I hare beheld with most respect the man
"Who knew himself; and knew the ways before him j
And from amongst them chose considerately,
With a clear foresight, not a blindfold courage ;
And, having chosen, with a steadfast mind
Pursued his purposes." Taylor, rfiilip Van Artevdde.
BOSTON:
PHILLIPS, SAMPSON AND COMPANY.
1 85 Y.
T8
' wintered accordin to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by
HKIIIIY T. rUCKERMAN,
In thfc Clerk's Office -f the District Court of tlie District of Massachusetts.
stereotyped by
HOBABT & BOBBINS,
New England Type nd Stereotype Foundery,
esToa.
\>'
\^'
CONTENTS
PAGE
GEORGE WASHINGTON,
THE PATRIOT, 6
LORD CHESTERFIELD,
THE MAN OF THE WORLD^ 29
DANIEL BOONE, " '
THE PIONEER, 42
ROBERT SOUTHED, Va ^_ , ^'i^^^ Vf /-^ -
THE MAN OF LETTERS, 69
SIR KENELM DIGBY,
THE MODERN KNIGHT, . 75 h
JACQUES LAFITTE, ^' ^
THE FINANCIER, 83
EDMUND KEAN,
THE ACTOR, 95 .
THEODORE KORNER, '^^ ^Jj
THE YOUTHFUL HERO, 103
ROBERT FULTON,
THE MECHANICIAN, . 121 '^
JOHN CONSTABLE, '^ '^ "'
THE LANDSCAPE PAINTER, 136
CHATEAUBRIAND,
THE POET OF THE OLD REGIME, 144 ^
FRANCIS JEFFREY,
THE REVIEWER 164
R03ER WILLIAMS,
THE TOLERANT COLONIST, 181 '
RICHARD SAVAGE,
THE LITERARY ADVENTURER, 191
DE WITT CLINTON, ^
THE NATIONAL ECONOMIST, 204
JENNY LIND, ! '^ ^1 \
THE VOCALIST, . ^y^^t^Jl 222
M13781
IV CONTENTS.
^GEORGE BERKELEY,
THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER, 238
GIACOMO LEOPARD I, ^
THE SCEPTICAL GENIUS, 267
DANIEL DE FOE,
THE WRITER FOR THE PEOPLE, 285
JOHN JAMES AUDUBON, r (
THE ORNITHOLOGIST, . I 304
LAURENCE STERNE,
THE SENTIMENTALIST, 315
MASSIMO D'AZEGLIO, ' k\
THE LITERARY STATESMAN, 342
SYDNEY SMITH/
THE GENIAL CHURCHMAN, 358
, CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN, ^^^i
THE SUPERNATURALIST^ 369
SIR DAVID WILKIE,
THE PAINTER OF CHARACTER, 379
JOSEPH ADDISON,
THE LAY PREACHER, .394
GOVERNEUR MORRIS, l ^ pj
THE AMERICAN STATESMAN, 412
SILVIO PELLICO,
THE ITALIAN MARTYR, 428
, THOMAS CAMPBELL,
THE POPULAR POET, 441
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN,
THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHER, 456
THE PATRIOT, .
GEORGE WASHINGTON
The memory of Washington is the highest and most precious
of national blessings, and, as such, cannot be approached by artist
or author without reverence. To pervert the traits or to mar the
unity of such a character is to wrong, not only his sacred mem-
ory, but the dearest rights of his countrymen. A poet once
conceived a drama based on the fate of Andre ; and, after striv-
ing to embody Washington in the piece, in a manner coincident
with his own profound sense of his character, he found that the
only way of effecting this, without detriment to his ideal, was to
keep that august presence off the stage, and to hint its vicinity
by the reverent manner in which the name and views of* Wash-
ington were treated by all the dramatis pcrsonm. This instinct
of dramatic propriety is a most striking proof of the native sacred-
ness of the subject. The more fertile it may be to the poet and
philosopher, the less right has the biographer to interfere with,
overlay, or exaggerate, its primitive truth, and the more careful
should he be in adhering to the lucid and conscientious statement
of facts, in themselves, and for themselves, immeasurably precious.
" You have George the Surveyor," said Carlyle, in his quaint
way, to an American, when talking of heroes. Never had that
vocation greater significance. It drew the young Virginian uncon-
sciously into the best education possible in a new country for a
military life. He was thereby practised in topographical obser-
vation ; inured to habits of keen local study ; made familiar with
1*
6 THEPATRIOT.
the fatigue, exposure, and expedients, incident to journeys on
foot and horseback, through streams and thickets, over mountains
and marshes ; taught to accommodate himself to limited fare,
strained muscles, the bivouac, the woods, the seasons, self-
dependence, and eflfort. This discipline inevitably trained his
perceptive faculties, and made him the accurate judge he subse-
quently became r of the capabilities of land, from its position,
^'limitsV'aniiVqnaliiy, for agricultural and warlike purposes. A love
cf ^eld- sports, the. chief amusement of the gentry in the Old
iDommien,' aind the oversight of a plantation, were favorable to
the same result. Life in the open air, skilful horsemanship, and
the use of the rifle, promoted habits of manly activity. To a
youth thus bred in the freedom and salubrity of a rural home,
we are disposed to attribute, in no small degree, the noble devel-
opment of Washington. How naturally frank courage is fostered
by such influences, all history attests. The strongest ranks in
the old Roman armies were levies drawn from the agricultural
laborers ; the names of Tell and Hofer breathe of the mountains :
and the English yeomen decided the victory on the fields where
their kings encountered the French in the early wars. Political
economists ascribe the deterioration of modern nations, in those
qualities which insure fortitude and martial enterprise, to the
encroachments of town life ; and the greatest cities of antiquity
fell through the insidious luxury of commercial success. Nor
are these general truths inapplicable to personal character. In
crowded towns artifice prevails. In the struggle for the prizes
of traffic, nobility of soul is apt to be lost in thrift. The best
hours of the day, passed under roofs and in streets, bring not the
requisite ministry to health, born of the fresh air. It enlarges
the mind to gaze habitually upon the horizon unimpeded by marts
and edifices. It keeps fresh the generous impulses to consort
with hunters and gentlemen, instead of daily meeting "the hard-
eyed lender and the pale lendee." In a word, the interest in
crops and herds, in woodland and upland, the excitement of deer-
shooting, the care of a rural domain, and the tastes, occupations,
duties, and pleasures, of an intelligent agriculturist, tend to con-
serve and expand what is best in human nature, which the spirit
of trade and the competition of social pride are apt to dwarf and
GEORGE WASHINGTON. 7
overlay. Auspicious, therefore, were the influences around the
childhood and youth of Washington, inasmuch as they left his
nature free, identified him with the least artificial of human pur-
suits, and nursed his physical while they left unperverted his
moral energies. He became attached to the kind of life of which
Burke and Webster were so enamored, that they ever turned
with alacrity from the cares of state to flocks and grain, planting
and reaping, the morning hunt, and the midsummer harvest.
There would seem to be a remarkable alEnity between the charm
of occupations like these and the comprehensive and beneficent
mission of the patriotic statesman. To draw near the heart of
Nature, to become a proficient in the application of her laws, to
be, as it were, her active coadjutor, has in it a manliness of aim
and a refreshing contrast to the wearisome anxieties of political
life, and the sordid absorption of trade, which charm such noble
minds, and afibrd their best resource at once for pastime and
utility.
There were, too, in that thinly-peopled region over which
impends the Blue Ridge, beside the healthful freedom of nature,
positive social elements at work. The aristocratic sentiment had
a more emphatic recognition there than in any other of the Eng-
lish Cisatlantic colonies ; the distinctions of landed property and
of gentle blood were deeply felt ; the responsibility of a high
caste, and of personal authority and influence over a subject race,
kept alive chivalric pride and loyalty; and, with the duties of the
agriculturist, the pleasures of the hunt and of the table, and the
rites of an established and unlimited hospitality, was mingled in
the thoughts and the conversation of the people that interest in
political aflaii*s whence arise public spirit and patriotic enthusiasm.
Thus, while estates carelessly cultivated, the absence of many
conveniences, the rarity of modern luxuries, the free and easy
habits of men accustomed rather to oversee workers than to work
themselves, the rough highways, the unsubstantial dwellings
and sparse settlements, might not impress the casual observer as
favorable to elegance and dignity, ho soon discovered both among
the families who boasted of a Cavalier ancestry and transmitted
noble blood. The Virginia of Sir Walter Raleigh a country
where the most extravagant of his golden dreams were to be
8 THEPATRIOT.
realized had given place to a nursery of men, cultivators of
the soil, and rangers of the woods, where free, genial, and brave
character found scope ; and the name of the distant colony that
graced Spenser's dedication of the Faerie Queene to his peerless
sovereign, instead of being identified with a new El Dorado, was
to become a shrine of Humanity, as the birthplace and home of
her noblest exemplar.
These advantages, however, Washington shared with many
planters of the South, and manorial residents of the North, and
they were chiefly negative. A broader range of experience and
more direct influences were indispensable to refine the manners
and to test the abilities of one destined to lead men in war, and
to organize the scattered and discordant elements of a young
republic. This experience circumstances soon provided. His
intimacy with Lord Fairfax, who. in the wilds of Virginia, emu-
lated the courteous splendor of baronial life in England, the
missions upon which he was sent by the governor of the State,
combining military, diplomatic, and surveying duties, and espe-
cially the acquaintance he gained with European tactics in the
disastrous campaign of Braddock, all united to prepare him
for the exigencies of his future career ; so that, in early man-
hood, with the athletic frame of a hunter and surveyor, the ruddy
health of an enterprising agriculturist, the vigilant observation
of a sportsman and border soldier, familiar alike with Indian
ambush, the pathless forest, freshets and fevers, he had acquired
the tact of authority, the self-possession that peril can alone
teach, the dignified manners of a man of society, the firm bear-
ing of a soldier, aptitude for affairs, and cheerfulness in privation.
To the keen sense of honor, the earnest fidelity, the modesty of
soul, and the strength of purpose, which belonged to his nature,
the life of the youth in his native home, the planter, the engi-
neer, the ambassador, the representative, the gentleman, and the
military leader, had thus added a harmony and a scope, which
already, to discriminating observers, indicated his future genius
for public life, and his competency to render the greatest national
services.
During these first years of public duty and private enterprise,
it is remarkable that no brilliant achievement served to encourage
GEORGE WASHINGTON. 9
those latent military aspirations which lurked in his blood. Brad-
dock scorned his advice ; Governor Dinwiddie foiled to recognize
his superior judgment ; and he reached Fort Duquesne only to
find it abandoned by the enemy. To clear a swamp, lay out a
road through the wilderness, guide to safety a band of fugitives,
survey faithfully the Shenandoah valley, treat effectively with
Indians, and cheer a famished garrison, were indeed services of
eminent utility ; but it was only indirectly that they were favor-
able to his renown, and prophetic of his superiority. His appar-
ently miraculous escapes from bullets, drowning, and the ravages
of illness, called forth, indeed, the recognition of a providential
care suggestive of future usefulness ; but the perplexities grow-
ing out of ill-defined relations between crown and provincial
officers, the want of discipline in troops, the lack of adequate
provision for the exigencies of public service, reverses, defeats,
physical and moral emergencies, thus early so tried the patience
of Washington, by the long endurance of care, disappointment,
and mortification, unredeemed by the glory which is Avont to
attend even such martyrdom, that he cheerfully sought retire-
ment, and was lured again to the field only by the serious danger
which threatened his neighbors, and the prompting of absolute
duty. The retrospect of this era of his life derives significance
and interest from subsequent events. We cannot look back, as
he must often have done from the honorable retreat of his age,
without recognizing the preparatory ordeal of his career in this
youth and early manhood, wherein he experienced, alternately,
the solace of domestic comfort and the deprivations of a border
campaign, the tranquil respectability of private station and the
responsibility of anxious office, the practice of the camp and the
meditations of the council, the hunt with gentlemen and the fight
mth. savages, the safe and happy hospitality of a refined circle and
forest life in momentary expectation of an ambush. Through all
these scenes, and in each situation, we see him preserving perfect
self-control, loyal to every duty, as firm and cheerful during the
bitter ordeal at Fort Necessity as when riding over his domain on a
summer morning, or shooting game on the banks of the Potomac,
ready to risk health, to abandon ease, to forego private interests,
with a public spirit worthy of the greatest statesman, yet scru-
10 THEPATRIOT.
pulous, methodical, and considerate in every detail of aifairs and
position, whether as a host, a master, a guardian, a son, or a hus-
band, as a member of a household or a legislator, as leader of a
regiment or agent of a survey ; and, so highly appreciated was
he for this signal fidelity within his then limited sphere, that his
opinion in a social discussion, his brand on tobacco, his sign-
manual to a chart, his report to a superior, and his word of
advice or of censure to a dependent, bore at once and forever
the sterling currency and absolute meaning which character
alone bestows. In this routine of duty and vicissitude under
these varied circumstances, in the traits they elicited and the
confidence they established, it is impossible not to behold a school
often severe, yet adequately instructive, and a gradual influence
upon the will, the habits, and the disposition of Washington,
which laid the foundations, deep, broad, and firm, of his charac-
ter, and confirmed the principles as well as the aptitudes of his
nature.
So intimately associated in our minds is the career of Wash-
ington with lofty and unsullied renown, that it is difficult to recall
him as divested of the confidence which his fame insured. Wt
are apt to forget that when he took command of the army his
person was unfamiliar, and his character inadequately tested to
the public sense. Officers who shared his counsels, comrades in
the French war, neighbors at Mount Vernon, the leading men of
ibis native State, and a few statesmen who had carefully informed
themselves of his antecedent life and private reputation, did,
indeed, well appreciate his integrity, valor, and self-respect ; but
to the majority who had enlisted in the imminent struggle, and
the large number who cautiously watched its prospects before
committing either their fortunes or their honor, the elected chief
was a stranger. Nor had he that natural facility of adaptation,
or those conciliating manners, which have made the fresh leader
of troops an idol in a month, nor the diplomatic courtesy that
wins political allies. If we may borrow a metaphor from natural
philosophy, it was not by magnetism, so much as by gravitation,
that his moral authority was established. There was nothing in
him to dazzle, as in Napoleon, nothing to allure, as in Louis
XIV. J when they sought to inspire their armies with enthusiasm.
GEORGE W A S H I N G T N . 11
The power of Washington as a guide, a chieftain, and a represen-
tative of his country, was based on a less dramatic and more
permanent law ; he gained the influence so essential to success,
the ability to control others. by virtue of a sublime self-govern-
ment. It was, in the last analysis, because personal interest, selfish
ambition, safety, comfort, all that human instincts endear,
were cheerfully sacrificed, because passions naturally strong were
kept in abeyance by an energetic will, because disinterestedness
was demonstrated as a normal fact of character, that gradually,
but surely, and by a law as inevitable as that which holds a planet
to its orbit, public faith was irrevocably attached to him. But
the process was slow, the delay hardly tolerable to a noble heart,
the ordeal wearisome to a brave spirit. In our view, no period
of his life is more affecting than the early months of his command,
when his prudence was sneered at by the ambitious, his military
capacity distrusted even by his most intimate friends, and his
"masterly inactivity" misinterpreted by those who awaited his
signal for action. The calm remonstrance, the inward grief, the
exalted magnanimity, which his letters breathe at this crisis,
reveal a heroism of soul not surpassed in any subsequent achieve-
ment. No man ever illustrated more nobly the profound truth
of Milton's sentiment, " They also serve who only stand and
wait." His was not simply the reticence of a soul eager for
enterprise, the endurance of a forced passivity, with vast peril
and glorious possibilities, the spur of necessity, the thirst for
glory, and the readiness for sacrifice stirring every pulse and
bracing every nerve ; but it was his part to " stand and wait " in
the midst of the gravest perplexities, in the face of an expectant
multitude, with a knowledge of circumstances that justified the
*' hope delayed," and without the sympathy which alleviates the
restless pain of " hope deferred," to " stand and wait " before
the half-averted eye of the loyal, the gibes of a powerful enemy,
the insinuations of factious comrades, with only conscious rec-
titude and trust in Heaven for support. How, in his official cor-
respondence, did Washington hush the cry of a wounded spirit ;
how plaintively it half escapes in the letter of friendship ; and
how singly does he keep his gaze on the great cause, and dash
aside the promptings of self-love, in the large cares and imper-
12 THEPATRIOT.
sonal interests of a country, not yet sensible of its infinite need
of him, and of its own injustice !
The difficulties which military leadership involves are, to a
certain extent, similar in all cases, and inevitable. All great
commanders have found the risks of battle often the least of their
trials. Disaffection among the soldiers, inadequate food and
equipment, lack of experience in the officers and of discipline in
the troops, jealousy, treason, cowardice, opposing counsels, and
other nameless dangers and perplexities, more or less complicate
the solicitude of every brave and loyal general. But in the case
of Washington, at the opening of the American war, these obsta-
cles to success were increased by his own conscientiousness ; and
circumstances without a parallel in previous history added to the
vicissitudes incident to all warfiire the hazards of a new and vast
political experiment. That his practical knowledge of military
affairs was too limited for him to cope auspiciously with veteran
officers, that his camp was destitute of engineers, his men of
sufficient clothing and ammunition, that the majority of them
were honest but inexpert yeomen, that tory spies and luke-
warm adherents were thickly interspersed among them, that
zeal for liberty was, for the most part, a spasmodic motive, not
yet firmly coexistent with national sentiment, that he was
obliged, month after month, to keep these incongruous and dis-
contented materials together, inactive, mistrustful, and vaguely
apprehensive, all this constitutes a crisis like that through
which many have passed ; but the immense extent of the country
in behalf of which this intrepid leader drew his sword, the diver-
sity of occupations and character which it was indispensable to
reconcile with the order and discipline of an army, the habits of
absolute independence which marked the American colonists of
every rank, the freedom of opinion, the local jealousies, the brief
period of enlistment, the obligation, ridiculed by foreign officers
but profoundly respected by Washington, to refer and defer to
Congress in every emergency, this loose and undefined power
over others in the field, this dependence for authority on a dis-
tant assembly, for aid on a local legislature, and for cooperation
on patriotic feeling alone, so thwarted the aims, perplexed the
action, and neutralized the personal efficiency of Washington, that
GEORGE WASHINGTON. 13
a man less impressed with the greatness of the object m view,
less sustained by solemn earnestness of purpose and trust in God,
would have abandoned in despair the post of duty, so isolated,
ungracious, desperate, and forlorn.
Imagine how, in his pauses from active oversight, his few and
casual hours of repose and solitude, the full consciousness of his
position of the facts of the moment, so clear to his practical
eye must have weighed upon his soul. The man on whose
professional skill he could best rely during the first months of the
war, he knew to be inspired by the reckless ambition of the adven-
turer, rather than the wise ardor of the patriot. Among the
Eastern citizens the spirit of trade, with its conservative policy
and evasive action, quenched the glow of public spirit. Where
one merchant, like Hancock, risked his all for the good cause,
and committed himself with a bold and emphatic signature to the
bond, and one trader, like Knox, closed his shop and journeyed
in the depth of winter to a far distant fort, to bring, through
incredible obstacles, ammunition and cannon to the American
camp, hundreds passively guarded their hoards, and awaited cau-
tiously the tide of affairs. While Washington anxiously watched
the enemy's ships in the harbor of Boston, his ear no less anx-
iously listened for tidings from Canada and the South. To-day,
the cowardice of the militia ; to-morrow, the death of the gallant
Montgomery ; now, the capture of Lee, and again, a foul calumny;
at one moment a threat of resignation from Schuyler, and at
another an Indian alliance of Sir Guy Johnson ; the cruelty of
his adversaries to a prisoner ; the delay of Congress to pass an
order for supplies or relief; desertions, insubordination, famine ;
a trading Yankee's stratagem or a New York tory's intrigue ;
the insulting bugle-note which proclaimed his fugitives a hunted
pack, and the more bitter whisper of distrust in his capacity or
impatience at his quiescence : these, and such as these, were the
discouragements which thickened around his gloomy path, and
shrouded the dawn of the Revolution in dismay. He was thus,
by the force of circumstances, a pioneer ; he was obliged to create
precedents, and has been justly commended as the master of " a
higher art than making war, the art to control and direct it," and
as a proficient in those victories of '' peace no less renowned than
2
14 THEPATRIOT.
war," which, as Fisher Ames declared, " changed mankind's
ideas of political greatness."
What, we are continuallj impelled to ask, were the grounds
of hope, the resources of trust and patience, which, at such crises,
and more especially during the early discouragements of the
struggle, buojed up and sustained that heroic equanimity, which
excited the wonder, and finally won the confidence, of the people?
First of all, a settled conviction of the justice of his cause and the
favor of God; then a belief, not carelessly adopted, that, if he
avoided as long as possible a general action, by well-arranged
defences and retreats, opportunities would occur when the enemy
could be taken at disadvantage, and by judicious surprises gradu-
ally worn out and vanquished. Proof was not wanting of a true
patriotic enthusiasm, unorganized, indeed, and impulsive, yet
real, and capable, by the prestige of success or the magnetism of
example, of being aroused and consolidated into invincible vigor.
Scattered among the lukewarm and the inexperienced friends of
the cause were a few magnanimous and self-devoted men, pledged
irretrievably to its support, and ready to sacrifice life, and all
that makes life dear, in its behalf Greene and Putnam, Knox
and Schuyler, Robert Morris and Alexander Hamilton, were