Page:History of England (Froude) Vol 4.djvu/258

238 acts would fill a volume, and were too great a charge. But he was a prince of singular prudence, of passing stout courage, of invincible fortitude, of dexterity wonderful. He was a springing well of eloquence, a rare spectacle of humanity; of civility and good nature an absolute precedent, a special pattern of clemency and moderation, a worthy example of regal justice, a bottomless spring of largess and benignity. He was in all the honest arts and faculties profoundly seen, in all liberal discipline equal with the best, in no kind of literature inexpert. He was to the world an ornament, to England a treasure, to his friends a comfort, to his foes a terrour, to his faithful and loving subjects a tender father, to innocents a sure protector, to wilful malefactors a sharp scourge, to his common weal and good people a quiet haven and anchor of safeguard, to the disturbers of the same a rock of extermination. In heinous and intolerable crimes against the commonwealth a severe judge, in like offences committed against himself a ready port and refuge of mercy, except to such as would persist incorrigibly. A man he was in gifts of nature and of grace peerless; and, to conclude, a man above all praises. Such a King did God set to reign over England; whereof this realm may well vaunt above other nations.'

This is the portrait drawn without its shadows; yet the features described in the language of admiring exaggeration resemble the true image far more closely than