GREAT MIEN. O89

have raised him to distinction had he been born in an
humble station. Compare his fugitive grandeur, sup-
ported by able ministers and generals, to the power
which his tutor, the great Aristotle, merely through
the force of his own genius, exercised over men’s
minds throughout the most civilized part of the world
for two thousand years after his death. Compare also
the part which has been acted in the world by the
Spanish monarchs, the masters of immense possessions
in Europe and America, to that by Christopher Colum-
bus, the Genoese navigator, who could have it inscribed
on his tomb-stone, that he gave a new world to the
kingdoms of Castile and Aragon. These comparisons
will teach you to distinguish between greatness of
character and greatness of station, which are too often
confounded. He who governs a great country may in
one sense be called a great king; but this is no more
than an appellation belonging to rank, like that of the
Great Mogul, or the Grand Seignior, and infers no
more personal grandeur than the title of Mr. Such-a-
one, as the Great Grocer or Great Brewer.

A, Must not great men be good men, too ?

Mr, C. If that man be great who does great things,
ib will not follow that goodness must necessarily be
one of his qualities, since that chiefly refers to the end
and intention of actions. Julius Cesar, and Cromwell,
for example, were men capable of the greatest exploits;
but directing them not to the public good, but to the
purposes of their own ambition, in pursuit of which
they violated all the duties of morality, they have
obtamed the title of great bad men. A person, how-
ever, cannot be great at all without possessing many
virtues. He must be firm, steady, and diligent, superior
to difficulties and dangers, and equally superior to the
allurements of ease and pleasure. For want of these
moral qualities, many persons of exalted minds and
great talents have failed to deserve the title of great
men. It is in vain that the French poets and histo-
rians have decorated Henry the Fourth with the