SKETCHES OF CHARACTERS.

CHARACTER OF GEN. WASHINGTON.

THIS great and good man died at his seat in the State of Virginia, upon the 15th day of December 1799, in the 68th year of his age, after an illness of only four-and twenty hours. This illustrious General and Politician was characterized by such rare endowments, and such fortunate temperament, that every action of his life was equally exempted from vice and from weakness. The powers of his mind, and the dispositions of his heart, were admirably suited to each other, It was the union of the most consummate prudence with the most perfect moderation.His views, though large and liberal, were never extrave agant. His virtues, though comprehensive and beneficent, were discriminating, judicious and practical. -His character had nothing in it to dazzle by its wildness, and surprize by eccentricity; it was of a higher order of moral beauty; it included every thing great and elevated, had no false and tinsel ornaments, and was incapable of change from the varying accidents of manners, of opinions and times.

General Washington, placed in circumstances of the most trying difficulties at the commencement of the American contest, accepted that situation which was pre-eminent in danger and responsibility. His perseverance overcame every obstacle; his moderation conciliated every oposition; his genius sup plied every resource; his enlarged view could plan, revise and improve, every branch of civil and military operation; he had the superior courage which can act or forbear to act, as true policy dictates, careless of the reproaches of ignorance. He knew how to conquer by waiting, in spite of obloquy, forr

the moment of victory; and he merited true praise by despising undeserved censure. His prudent firmness in the most arduous moments of the great struggle, proved the salvation of the cause which he supported. His conduct was on all occasions guided by the most pure disinterestedness. He ever acted as if his country's welfare, and that alone, was the moving spring. He performed great actions, he persevered in a course of laborious utility, with an equanimity that neither sought distinction nor was flattered by it. His reward was in the consciousness of his own rectitude, and in the success of his patriotic efforts.As his elevation to the chief power was the unbiassed choice of his countrymen, his exercise of it was agreeable to the purity of its origin. His prudent administration consolidated and enlarged the dominions of an infant Republic. Voluntarily resigning the magistracy, which he had filled with such distinguished honor, he enjoyed the unequalled satisfaction of leaving to the state he had contributed to establish, the fruits of his wisdom, and the example of his vir

tues.

It is some consolation, amid so many instances of violent ambition, and the criminal thirst of power, to find a character whom it is honorable to admire and virtuous to imitate. A Conqueror for the freedom of his country!-A Legislator, for its security! A Magistrate, for its happiness! His glories were never sullied by those excesses into which the highest quali ties are apt to degenerate. With the greatest virtues, he was exempt from their corresponding vices. His fame, bounded by no country, will be confined to no age. The character of General Washington will be transmitted to posterity, and the memory of his virtues, while patriotism and virtue are held sacred among men, will remain undiminished.

CHARACTER OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON,

It is with really great men as with great literary works, the excellence of both is best tested by the

extent and durableness of their impression. The public has not suddenly, but after an experience of five-and-twenty years, taken the impression of the just celebrity of Alexander Hamilton, that nothing. but his extraordinary intrinsic merit could have made,. and still less, could have made so deep and maintained: so long. In this case it is safe and correct to judge by effects: we sometimes calculate the height of a mountain, by measuring the length of its shadow.

That writer would deserve the fame of a public ben-efactor, who could exhibit the character of Hamilton, with the truth and force that all who intimately knew him conceived it :-his example would then take the same ascendant, as bis talents. The portrait alone, however, exquisitely finished, could not inspire genius where it is not ; but, if the world should again have possession of so rare a gift, it might awaken it where it sleeps, as by a spark from heaven's own altar; for, surely, if there is any thing like divinity in man, it is in his admiration of virtue.

Men of the most elevated minds have not always the readiest discernment of character. Perhaps he was sometimes too sudden and too lavish in bestowing his confidence: his manly spirit, disdaining artifice, suspected none. But, while the power of his friends over him seemed to have no limits, and really had none, in respect to those things which were of a nature to be yielded, no man, not the Roman Cato himself, was more inflexible on every point that touched, or only seemed to touch, integrity and honor With him, it was not enough to be unsuspected; his bosom would have glowed, like a furnace, at its own whispers of reproach. Mere purity would have seemed to him below praise; and such were his habits, and such his nature, that the pecuniary temptations, which many others can only with great exertion and self-denial resist, had no attractions for him. He was very far from obstinate; yet as his friends assailed his opinions with less profound thought than he had devoted to them, they were seldom shaken by discussion He defended them, however, with as much mildness as force,

and evinced, that, if he did not yield, it was not for want of gentleness or modesty.

The tears that flow on this fond recital, will never dry up. My heart, penetrated with the fond remembrance of the man, grows liquid as I write, and I could pour it out like water. I could weep too for my country, which mournful as it is, does not know half of its loss. It deeply laments, when it turns its eyes back, and sees what Hamilton was ;-but my soul stiffens with despair, when I think what Hamilton would have been.

His social affections and his private virtues are not so properly the object of public attention, as the conspicuous and commanding qualities that gave him his fame and influence in the world.

His early life we pass over; though his heroic spir it, in the army, has furnished a theme, that is dear to patriotism, and will be sacred to glory.

As a lawyer, his comprehensive genius reached the. principles of his profession: he compassed its extent, he fathomed its profound, perhaps, even more familiarly and easily, than the ordinary rules of its practice. With most men law is a trade; with him it was a science..

As a statesman, he was not more distinguished by the great extent of his views, than by the caution with which he provided against impediments, and the watchfulness of his care over right, and the liberty of the subject In none of the revenue bills which he framed, though committees reported them, is there to. be found a single clause that savors of despotic power; not one that the sagest champions of law and liberty would, on that ground, hesitate to approve and adopt.

It is rare, that a man, who owes so much to nature, descends to seek more from industry; but he seemed to depend on industry as if nature had done nothing for him. His habits of investigation were very remarkable; his mind seemed to cling to his subject, till he had exhausted it. Hence the uncommon superiority of his reasoning powers, a superiority that

seemed to be augmented from every source, and to be fortified by every auxiliary, learning, taste, wit, imag-ination, and eloquence. These were embellished and enforced by his temper and manners, by his fame and his virtues.

It is difficult in the midst of such various excellence,to say, in what particular the effect of his greatness was most manifest. No man more promptly discerned truth; no man more clearly displayed it: it was not merely made visible-it seemed to come bright with illumination from his lips. But prompt and clear as he was, fervid as Demosthenes, like Cicero full of resource, he was not less remarkable for the copiousness and completeness of his argument, that left little for cavil, and nothing for doubt, Some men take their strongest argument as a weapon, and use no other; but he left nothing to be inquired for more -nothing to be answered. He not only disarmed his adversaries of their pretexts and objections, but he stripped them of all excuse for having urged them; he confounded and subdued as well as convinced.He indemnified them, however, by making his discussion a complete map of his subject; so that his opponents might, indeed feel ashamed of their mistakes, but they could not repeat them. In fact, it was no common effort that could preserve a really able antag. onist from becoming his convert; for the truth, which his researches so distinctly presented to the understanding of others, was rendered almost irresistibly commanding and impressive by the love and reverence, which, it was ever apparent, he profoundly cherished for it in his own.

The only ordinary distinction to which he aspired, was military; and for that, in the event of a foreign war, he would have been solicitous. He undoubtedly discovered the predominance of a soldier's feelings, and all that is honor in the character of a soldier, was at home in his heart. His early education was in the camp; there the first fervors of his genius were poured forth, and his earliest and most cordial friendships formed; there he became enamored of glory and was admitted to her embrace.