been laid so heavily on it, that great allowances are to be made for troops raised under such circumstances. The deficiency of numbers, discipline and stores can only lead to this conclusion, that their spirit has exceeded their strength." How long Washington remained in the president's house cannot be ascertained, probably but a few days. The house, considerably smaller than it now is, was insufficient for the accommodation of his military family, and arrangements were early made for his removal to the Vassall house, now Mr. Longfellow's, which had been deserted by its Tory owner, and occupied by the Marblehead troops. Here he resided till the following April. I have described the acclamations of joy, trust and hope that hailed our chieftain's arrival. With the shouts of the multitude ascended to heaven the last breath of a Cambridge patriot. Colonel Gardner-a member of the Provincial Congress, a man universally honored and beloved, a pillar in Church and State, one of the bravest officers at Bunker Hill-received his fatal wound at the head of his regiment, rallied strength to urge them to valiant and vigorous resistance, lingered death-bound till the morning that gave the troops their leader and the country its father, and left the charge of a gallant officer's obsequies for the commander's first official duty. We have the general order bearing date July 4, for the rendering of the usual military honors at the funeral of one, who-so the document reads—“ fought, bled and died in the cause of his country and mankind,”—words then first used, and which have become too trite for repetition, simply because they are in themselves, beyond comparison, comprehensive, appropriate, majestic, worthy of the great heart that sought expression in them. Washington's life here has left few records except those which belong to the history of the war and of the country. He lived generously, though frugally,―receiving often at dinner his generals, the foremost personages in civil office and influence, delegates from the Continental Congress, and distinguished visitors to the camp. His own habits were almost abstemious ; and when, according to the invariable custom of the time, a long session at table seemed inevitable, he left his guests in charge of some one of his staff more disposed than himself to convivial indulgence. During the latter portion of his sojourn here his wife relieved him in part from the cares of the hospitality which she was admirably fitted to adorn. He generally attended worship at the church of the First Parish. I well remember the site of the square pew, under the shadow of the massive pulpit, which he was said to have statedly occupied; and the mention of it recalls to my recollection a couplet of a hymn written by Rev. Dr. Holmes and sung in the old church on the Fourth of July, fifty years ago, in which he describes that house of worship as the place "Where, in our country's darkest day, Once, perhaps oftener, service was performed in Christ Church, whose rector and most of his leading parishioners had become exiles on political grounds. It is impossible to overestimate the importance of these nine months in Cambridge. Washington himself was impatient of the delay. But for the prudent counsels of the generals who knew their men better than he could know them thus early, he would have made a direct assault on the British troops, and attempted to force their surrender or retreat; and it was here that he learned to wait, to curb his native impetuousness of temper, and to make discretion the trusty satellite of valor. Meanwhile, the army was constantly increasing in numbers, and was largely recruited from the Middle and Southern States, while in New England, as the term of service for which enlistments had been made expired, the soldiers either reënlisted, or were replaced or more than replaced by men of equal zeal and courage. There were sufficiently frequent alarms and skirmishes to keep alive the practice of arms; while the long line of outposts, more or less exposed to sudden assault, demanded incessant vigilance, and formed a training school in strict discipline, prompt obedience, and those essential habits of camp-life which the citizen-soldier, however brave in battle, finds most uncongenial, harassing and burdensome. The power of a single organizing mind was never more fully manifested than in the creation of a regular and disciplined army from the raw recruits, the materials heterogeneous to the last degree, to all appearance hopelessly incongruous, which now came under the commander's shaping hand. Confusion crystallized into order; discord resolved itself into harmony; jarring counsels were reconciled; rivalries vanished, as every man found his abilities recognized, his fitting place and due honor accorded to him, and his services utilized to their utmost capacity. Never in the history of military achievements was there a more signal triumph than in the termination of the siege of Boston. On the morning of the 5th of March, when General Howe saw the four strong redoubts which had risen on Dorchester Heights while he slept, he exclaimed, “The rebels have done more work in one night than my whole army could have done in one month." In the evening the British were secure within their lines, and counted on the speedy dispersion of the besieging army; in the morning they saw surrender or flight as their only alternative. The siege was made complete and impregnable. But for the ships at anchor in the harbor the entire British army would have been prisoners of war. 4 Thus closed the first act of the great drama,—here, where we stand, initiated, matured, directed, borne on to its glorious and ever memorable issue. Ours, then, is more than a battle ground,-a soil hallowed by those wise, stern, self-denying counsels, without which feats of arms were mere child's play, made sacred by the presence of such a constellation of patriots as can hardly ever, elsewhere upon earth, have deliberated on the destiny of a nation in its birth-throes,-Putnam, Greene, Stark, Prescott, Ward, Read, and their illustrious associates, men who staked their all in the contest, and deemed death for their country but a nobler and more enduring life. Enough of history. Let us now gather up, as we may, some few traits of the character of him on whom our central regard is fixed in these commemorative rites. The Washington of the popular imagination, nay, of our gravest histories, is a mythical personage, such as never lived or could have lived among men. The figure is too much like that of the perfect goddess born from the brain of Jupiter. Washington undoubtedly grew as other men grow, was not exempt from human passions and infirmities, was shaped and trained by the Providence whose chosen instrument he was. It was his glory that he yielded to the plastic hand, obeyed the heavenly vision, followed without halting the guiding spirit. The evident coldness of the Virginia delegates in Congress with regard to his appointment shows that up to that time, notwithstanding his early military experience, they had seen little in him to distinguish him from other respectable gentlemen of faultless lineage, fair estate and unblemished reputation. But from the moment when he accepted the command of the army he gave himself entirely and irrevocably to his country. Such singleness of purpose as his is the essence of genius, whose self-creating law is, "This one thing I do." From that moment no collateral interest turned him aside; no shadow of self crossed his path; no lower ambition came between him and his country's cause; he had no hope, no fear, but for the sacred trust devolved upon him. His disinterestedness gave him his clear and keen vision, his unswerving impartiality, his uncompromising rectitude, his power over other minds. The selfseeking man sees double; and we learn from the highest authority that it is only when the eye is single that "the whole body is full of light." The secret of influence, also, lies here. The man who can be supposed to have. personal ends in view, even though in his own mind they are but secondary, is always liable to be judged by them, and the good that is in him gains not half the confidence it deserves. But self-abnegation, when clearly recognized, wins not only respect, but assent and deference; its opinions have the validity of absolute truth; its will, the force of impersonal law. The professed philanthropists and reformers who have swarmed in the social history of the last half-century furnish a manifold illustration of this principle. The few of them who have carried large numbers along with them and have moved the world have not been the greatest and most, gifted among them, but those who have cared not, if the wheel would only turn, whether it raised them to fame or crushed them to powder. So men believed and trusted in Washington, not merely because he was a wise and prudent man, but because they knew him to be as utterly incapable of selfish aims and motives as the Liberty whose cause he served. I have spoken of a sort of mythical, superhuman grandeur, in which Washington has been enshrined in much of our popular speech and literature. I think that, on the other hand, there has been in some quarters a disposition to underrate him. For this there is ample reason, yet no ground. He seems the less, because he was so great. A perfect sphere looks smaller than one of the same dimensions with a diversified surface. We measure eminences by depressions, the height of mountains by the chasms that yawn beneath them. Littlenesses of character give prominence to what there is in it of greatness. The one virtue looms up with a fascinating grandeur from a life full of faults. The patriot who will not pay his debts or govern his passions often attracts more homage than if he led a sober and honest life. The single traits of erratic genius not infrequently gain in splendor from their relief against a background of weaknesses and follies. We might enumerate in Washington various traits of mind and character, either of which in equal measure would suffice for the fame of a man who had little else that challenged approval. But what distinguishes Washington preeminently is that it is impossible to point out faults or deficiencies that marred his work, detracted from his reputation, dishonored his life. The most observed and best known man in the country for the eight years of the war and for the other eight of his presidency, even jealousy and partisan rancor could find no pretence for the impeachment of his discretion or his virtue. His biographers have seemed to revel in the narrative of some two or three occasions on which he was intensely angry, as if, like the vulnerable heel of Achilles, they were needed to show that their hero was still human. But let it not be forgotten that this roundness of moral proportions, this utter lack of picturesque diversity in his character, must have been the outcome of strenuous self-discipline. His almost unruffled calmness and serenity were the result, not of apathy, but of self-conquest. It was the fierce warfare and decisive victory within that made him the cynosure for all eyes, and won for him the homage of all hearts that loved their country. We know but little of the details of his private life for the first forty years or more; but even the reverence of posterity has not succeeded in wholly veiling from view the undoubted fact that he was by nature vehement, impulsive, headstrong, impatient, passionate,—a man in whose blood the fiery coursers might easily have run riot, and strewed their way with havoc. By far the greater honor is due to him who so held them under bit, rein and curb that masterly self-control under intensest provocation became his fore most characteristic,-that disappointment, delay, defeat, even treachery, so seldom disturbed his equanimity, spread a cloud over his brow, or drew from him a resentful or bitter word. We admire, also, in him the even poise with which he bore his high command in war and in the counsels of the nation. In mien, manner, speech, intercourse, he was never beneath, and never above his place. Dignity without haughtiness, firmness without obstinacy, condescension without stooping, gentleness without suppleness, affability without undue familiarity, were blended in him as in hardly any other historical personage. No one who could claim his ear was repelled; yet to no one did he let himself down. He sought and received advice, gave its full weight and worth to honest dissent, yet never for a moment resigned the leader's staff. The more thoroughly we study the history of the war, the more manifest is it that on this one man more than on all beside depended its successful end. Congress lacked equally power and promptness; the State legislatures were dilatory and often niggardly in provision for their troops; exposure and privation brought portions of the army to the very brink of revolt and secession; cabals were raised in behalf of generals of more brilliant parts and more boastful pretensions; success repeatedly hovered over his banner only to betray him in the issue; yet in every emergency he was none the less the tower of strength, or rather the guiding pillar of the nation by day and night, in cloud and fire. Ileart and hope never once forsook him, and his elastic courage sustained failing hearts and rekindled flickering hope. His judgment of men, his keen insight into character, bas also its prominent place among the sources of his power. In Arnold, indeed, and to some degree in Gates, he was deceived; but of the many in whom he reposed confidence it is hard to add to the list of those who betrayed his trust. He recognized instantly the signal merit of Greene, and employed him constantly in the most arduous and responsible service. Putnam, and the other brave and devoted, but untrained generals whom he found here on his arrival, lost nothing in his regard by their rusticity of garb and mien. Pickering, than whom the annals of our State bear the name of no more ardent patriot or more honorable man, was successively his secretary, commissary general and quartermaster, and held in his presidency, at one time or another, the chief place in almost every department of the public service. In Hamilton's very boyhood he discovered the man, who eclipsed his own military fame by repairing the nation's shattered credit and establishing her financial safety and efficiency. He understood every man's capacity, and knew how to utilize it to the utmost. Rarest gift of all,-he knew what he could not do, and what others could do better than himself; and he in no respect appears greater than in committing to the most secure and efficient agency the several portions of his military and civil responsibility, in accept |