and rulers of mind, follows later, or comes not at all.  The perceptions of a public are as subtly-sighted, as its passions are blind.  It sees, and feels, and knows the excellence, which it can neither understand, nor explain, nor vindicate.  These involuntary opinions of people at large explain themselves, and are vindicated by events, and form at last the constants of human understanding.  A character of the first order of greatness, such as seems to pass out of the limits and course of ordinary life, often lies above the ken of intellectual judgment; but its merits and its infirmities never escape the sleepless perspicacity of the common sentiment, which no novelty of form can surprise, and no mixture of qualities can perplex.  The mind—­the logical faculty—­comprehends a subject, when it can trace in it the same elements, or relations, which it is familiar with elsewhere:  if it finds but a faint analogy of form or substance, its decision is embarrassed.  But this other instinct seems to become subtler, and more rapid, and more absolute in conviction, at the line where reason begins to falter.  Take the case of Shakespeare.  His surpassing greatness was never acknowledged by the learned until the nation had ascertained and settled it as a foregone and questionless conclusion.  Even now, to the most sagacious mind of this time, the real ground and evidence of its own assurance of Shakespeare’s supremacy, is the universal, deep, immovable conviction of it in the public feeling.  There have been many acute essays upon his minor characteristics; but intellectual criticism has never grappled with Shakespearian art, in its entireness and grandeur, and probably it never will.  We know not now wherein his greatness consists.  We cannot demonstrate it.  There is less indistinctness in the merit of less eminent authors.  Those things which are not doubts to our consciousness, are yet mysteries to our mind.  And if this is true of literary art, which is so much within the sphere of reflection, it may be expected to find more striking illustration in great practical and public moral characters.

These considerations occur naturally to the mind in contemplating the fame of Washington.  An attentive examination of the whole subject, and of all that can contribute to the formation of a sound opinion, results in the belief that General Washington’s mental abilities illustrate the very highest type of greatness.  His mind, probably, was one of the very greatest that was ever given to mortality.  Yet it is impossible to establish that position by a direct analysis of his character, or conduct, or productions.  When we look at the incidents or the results of that great career—­when we contemplate the qualities by which it is marked from its beginning to its end—­the foresight which never was surprised, the judgment which nothing could deceive, the wisdom whose resources were incapable of exhaustion—­combined with a spirit as resolute in its official duties as it was moderate