Majus erit. Veteres actus, primamque juventam
Prosequar? Ad sese mentem praesentia ducunt.
Narrem justitiam? Resplendet gloria Martis.
Armati referam vires? Plus egit inermis.
CLAUDIAN DE LAUD. STIL.

(Translations.)--If I desire to pass over a part in silence, whatever
I omit will seem the most worthy to have been recorded. Shall I
pursue his old exploits and early youth? His recent merits recall
the mind to themselves. Shall I dwelt on his justice? The glory of
the warrior rises before me resplendent. Shall I relate his strength
in arms? He performed yet greater things unarmed.

"There is something," says Harrington, in the Preliminaries to the
Oceana, "first in the making of a commonwealth, then in the governing
of it, and last of all in the leading of its armies, which though
there be great divines, great lawyers, great men in all ranks of
life, seems to be peculiar only to the genius of a gentleman. For so
it is in the universal series of history, that if any man has founded
a commonwealth, he was first a gentleman." Such also, he adds, as
have got any fame as civil governors, have been gentlemen, or persons
of known descents. Sir Alexander Ball was a gentleman by birth; a
younger brother of an old and respectable family in Gloucestershire.
He went into the navy at an early age from his own choice, and, as he
himself told me, in consequence of the deep impression and vivid
images left on his mind by the perusal of "Robinson Crusoe." It is
not my intention to detail the steps of his promotion, or the
services in which he was engaged as a subaltern. I recollect many
particulars indeed, but not the dates, with such distinctness as
would enable me to state them (as it would be necessary to do if I