But who, if he be call'd upon to face
Same awful moment, to which Heaven has join'd
Great issues, good or bad for human kind,
Is happy as a lover, is attired
With sudden brightness like a man inspired;
And through the heat of conflict keeps the law
In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw.
WORDSWORTH.

An accessibility to the sentiments of others on subjects of
importance often accompanies feeble minds, yet it is not the less a
true and constituent part of practical greatness, when it exists
wholly free from that passiveness to impression which renders counsel
itself injurious to certain characters, and from that weakness of
heart which, in the literal sense of the word, is always craving
advice. Exempt from all such imperfections, say rather in perfect
harmony with the excellences that preclude them, this openness to the
influxes of good sense and information, from whatever quarter they
might come, equally characterised both Lord Nelson and Sir Alexander
Ball, though each displayed it in the way best suited to his natural
temper. The former with easy hand collected, as it passed by him,
whatever could add to his own stores, appropriated what he could
assimilate, and levied subsidies of knowledge from all the accidents
of social life and familiar intercourse. Even at the jovial board,
and in the height of unrestrained merriment, a casual suggestion,
that flashed a new light on his mind, changed the boon companion into
the hero and the man of genius; and with the most graceful transition
he would make his company as serious as himself. When the taper of
his genius seemed extinguished, it was still surrounded by an
inflammable atmosphere of its own, and rekindled at the first