advantage be set in opposition to that of any Monarch or citizen which
the annals of any age or any nation can present to us. He seems, indeed,
to be the realisation of that perfect character, which, under the
denomination of a sage or wise man, the philosophers have been fond of
delineating, rather as a fiction of their imagination than in hopes of
ever seeing it reduced to practice; so happily were all his virtues
tempered together, so justly were they blended, and so powerfully did
each prevent the other from exceeding its proper bounds. He knew how to
conciliate the most enterprising spirit with the coolest moderation; the
most obstinate perseverance with the easiest flexibility; the most
severe justice with the greatest lenity; the greatest rigour in command
with the greatest affability of deportment; the highest capacity and
inclination for science, with the most shining: talents for action. His
civil and his military virtues are almost equally the objects of our
admiration, excepting only, that the former, being more rare among
princes, as well as more useful, seem chiefly to challenge our applause.
Nature also, as if desirous that so bright a production of her skill
should be set in the fairest light, had bestowed on him all bodily
accomplishments, vigour of limbs, dignity of shape and air, and a
pleasant, engaging, and open countenance. Fortune alone, by throwing him
into that barbarous age, deprived him of historians worthy to transmit
his fame to posterity; and we wish to see him delineated in more lively
colours, and with more particular strokes, that we may at least perceive
some of those small specks and blemishes, from which, as a man, it is
impossible he could be entirely exempted.

HUME.

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