Valuing in others merits which he himself possessed, Sir Alexander
Ball felt no jealous apprehension of great talent. Unlike those
vulgar functionaries, whose place is too big for them, a truth which
they attempt to disguise from themselves, and yet feel, he was under
no necessity of arming himself against the natural superiority of
genius by factitious contempt and an industrious association of
extravagance and impracticability, with every deviation from the
ordinary routine; as the geographers in the middle ages used to
designate on their meagre maps the greater part of the world as
deserts or wildernesses, inhabited by griffins and chimaeras.
Competent to weigh each system or project by its own arguments, he
did not need these preventive charms and cautionary amulets against
delusion. He endeavoured to make talent instrumental to his purposes
in whatever shape it appeared, and with whatever imperfections it
might be accompanied; but wherever talent was blended with moral
worth, he sought it out, loved and cherished it. If it had pleased
Providence to preserve his life, and to place him on the same course
on which Nelson ran his race of glory, there are two points in which
Sir Alexander Ball would most closely have resembled his illustrious
friend. The first is, that in his enterprises and engagements he
would have thought nothing done, till all had been done that was
possible:-


Nil actum reputans, si quid superesset agendum.


The second, that he would have called forth all the talent and virtue
that existed within his sphere of influence, and created a band of