George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 4, 15th edition.

‘ [314] sentiments of true honor and passion for glory;’

chap. XIII.} 1759.

whose ‘example inspired alacrity and cheerfulness in encountering severest toils;’ whose zeal for ‘strict discipline and order gave to his troops a superiority which even the regulars and provincials publicly acknowledged.’ On the sixth of the following January, the woman of his choice was bound with him in wedlock. The first month of union was hardly over, when, in the House of Burgesses, the speaker, obeying the resolve of the House, publicly gave him the thanks of Virginia for his services to his country; and as the young man, taken by surprise, hesitated for words, in his attempt to reply,—‘Sit down,’ interposed the speaker; ‘your modesty is equal to your valor, and that surpasses the power of any language I possess.’ After these crowded weeks, Washington, no more a soldier, retired to Mount Vernon with the experience of five years of assiduous service. Yet not the quiet of rural life by the side of the Potomac, not the sweets of conjugal love, could turn his fixed mind from the love of glory; and he revealed his passion by adorning his rooms with busts of Eugene and Marlborough, of Alexander, of Caesar, of Charles the Twelfth; and of one only among living men, the king of Prussia, whose struggles he watched with painful sympathy. Thus Washington had ever before his eyes the image of Frederic. Both were eminently founders of nations, childless heroes, fathers only to their countries. The one beat down the dominion of the aristocracy of the Middle Ages by a military monarchy; the Providence which rules the world had elected the other to guide the fiery coursers of revolution along nobler paths, and to check them firmly at the goal