in either country, as freely as they have been heretofore, but that they will not be abandoned altogether.".

Dr. Jackson does suggest that the modern operation for opening into the trachea below the diseased part of the throat gives an opportunity for prolonging life, "while a chance is afforded for the subsidence of the disease, by a natural process, after which the wound may be allowed to heal up. This practice has been resorted to with success in various instances of obstruction in the wind pipe, and especially, of late, in croup. But it is important that this operation shall be performed before the vital powers have been too much exhausted by the painful and wearing struggles for life." On the whole, Dr. Jackson's impression is evidently distinct, that Dr. Craik and his medical assistants did the best which the science of their time suggested, for a very severe attack of "Acute Laryngitis."

Washington's Services and Influences-The Mystery That Grew Up about His Moral Character-His Apotheosis as a Kind of Demi-God-His Utterances Treated as Those of an Oracle-The Truth of HistoryThe IIuman Washington as Revealed in His Diaries and Correspondence-His Power over Men-His Ideas and Ambitions-His Character as a Moral Power-His Life an Evidence That Right Is Might.

I

N sixty-six years between the birth of Washington and his death, the condition of his country had wholly changed. As we saw in the beginning of this biography, he was born in a farmer's family, on the frontier of a colony, itself insignificant in the empire of Great Britain. He died the first man in a nation which owed to him more, in the struggle from which its existence was born, than it owed to any other man. At the time of his death, it is a nation, with all the attributes of nationality, with its army, its navy, and its position among the nations. of the world, a position well earned and everywhere respected. This position it owes chiefly to him.

After nearly one hundred years more, a certain mystery still attaches to a change so great, and many solutions of this mystery have been attempted

without perfect success. It was the habit of the writers of the beginning of the nineteenth century, to keep out of view as far as they could, whatever was human or simple in the character of Washington, and if they were Americans, to hold him up before their fellow-countrymen, almost as a demigod for worship. There was a habit of giving to his utterances a certain oracular character; and, even to this moment, it is thought enough to say of a given policy that it was recommended by Washington, or that it was disapproved by him; and all question among Americans with regard to that policy is, by this reference to him, supposed to be settled. This unfortunate apotheosis of the greatest man in American history, has, as the century went on, re-acted against his reputation. From this apotheosis it happened, that, for the very few years in which the memories of men would best have preserved the real incidents and habits of his life, there was a certain disposition to suppress such anecdotes as would recall his action and personal bearing, and to leave the statue as it had been placed upon its pedestal, without giving to it human color, dress, or

movement.

Fortunately for the truth of history, as has been already said in these pages, he has left us, in collections of his own letters and diaries, very ample material from which we may, even now, check the habit of separating him from the other men in his

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time, and may show what were the real characteristics from which sprang his remarkable power. If the work attempted in this volume has been tolerably well done, the reader sees that here was emphatically a man of the people, who grew up in the midst of the people and understood them well. A distinguished modern author was asked how it was that he wrote such good English; and he replied that he supposed it was because he never learned to write Latin. A remark somewhat similar may be made of Washington, not simply, or chiefly with regard to literary style, but with regard to his training for life and its affairs. He was educated by intimacy with men,--and the consequence was that he knew men and knew how to command them. In all exigencies he dealt with men with singular success. The people who were nearest him believed in him most thoroughly, and were most loyal to him. The men, again, who had not known him personally, when they came under his command, or into his immediate presence, were apt to see the reason of what he urged, and to be eager to carry out his wishes. Often, indeed, when the wordy orders of the Continental Congress were powerless with the States, the private letters of Washington to the governors of those States, brought about the results which he needed, and which the Congress had commanded in vain. As the reader has seen, in whatever obloquy or intrigues