of a late penitence, and the acknowledgments which expiring ambition
pays to virtue.

There is nothing more memorable in history than the actions, fortunes,
and character of this great man,--whether we consider the grandeur of
the plans he formed, the courage and wisdom with which they were
executed, or the splendor of that success which, adorning his youth,
continued without the smallest reverse to support his age, even to the
last moments of his life. He lived above seventy years, and reigned
within ten years as long as he lived, sixty over his dukedom, above
twenty over England,--both of which he acquired or kept by his own
magnanimity, with hardly any other title than he derived from his arms:
so that he might be reputed, in all respects, as happy as the highest
ambition, the most fully gratified, can make a man. The silent inward
satisfactions of domestic happiness he neither had nor sought. He had a
body suited to the character of his mind, erect, firm, large, and
active, whilst to be active was a praise,--a countenance stern, and
which became command. Magnificent in his living, reserved in his
conversation, grave in his common deportment, but relaxing with a wise
facetiousness, he knew how to relieve his mind and preserve his dignity:
for he never forfeited by a personal acquaintance that esteem he had
acquired by his great actions. Unlearned in books, he formed his
understanding by the rigid discipline of a large and complicated
experience. He knew men much, and therefore generally trusted them but
little; but when he knew any man to be good, he reposed in him an entire
confidence, which prevented his prudence from degenerating into a vice.
He had vices in his composition, and great ones; but they were the vices
of a great mind: ambition, the malady of every extensive genius,--and
avarice, the madness of the wise: one chiefly actuated his youth,--the
other governed his age. The vices of young and light minds, the joys of