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eye。 Evenin outward demeanour; they showed a stamp of majesty that made thewarrior's haughty stride look vulgar; if not absurd。 It was an agewhen what we call talent had far less consideration than now; butthe massive materials which produce stability and dignity of charactera great deal more。 The people possessed; by hereditary right; thequality of reverence; which; in their descendants; if it survive atall; exists in smaller proportion; and with a vastly diminished force;in the selection and estimate of public men。 The change may be forgood or ill; and is partly; perhaps; for both。 In that old day; theEnglish settler on these rude shores… having left king; nobles; andall degrees of awful rank behind; while still the faculty andnecessity of reverence were strong in him… bestowed it on the whitehair and venerable brow of age; on long…tried integrity; on solidwisdom and sad…coloured experience; on endowments of that grave andweighty order which gives the idea of permanence; and es underthe general definition of respectability。 These primitive statesmen;therefore… Bradstreet; Endicott; Dudley; Bellingham; and theirpeers… who were elevated to power by the early choice of thepeople; seem to have been not often brilliant; but distinguished bya ponderous sobriety; rather than activity of intellect。 They hadfortitude and self…reliance; and; in time of difficulty or peril;stood up for the welfare of the state like a line of cliffs againsta tempestuous tide。 The traits of character here indicated were wellrepresented in the square cast of countenance and large physicaldevelopment of the new colonial magistrates。 So far as a demeanourof natural authority was concerned; the mother country need not havebeen ashamed to see these foremost men of an actual democracyadopted into the Ho
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