which he changed defeats into victories or converted criminal faults into philanthropy. Gifted with an extraordinary power of expression, he used his splendid language to impose by sonorous periods, upon the credulity or fancy of his people. No one excelled him in ingenuity, eloquence, bombast, gasconade or dialectic skill. When at the head of power, he lived constantly in a gorgeous military pageant; and, a perfect master of dramatic effect upon the excitable masses of his countrymen, he forgot the exhumation of the dishonored bones of Cortéz to superintend the majestic interment of the limb he had lost at Vera Cruz.2
It will easily be understood how such a man, in the revolutionary times of Mexico, became neither the Cromwell nor the Washington of his country. The great talent which he unquestionably possessed, taught him that it was easier to deal corruptly with corruptions than to rise to the dignity of a loyal reformer. He and his country mutually acted, and reacted upon each other. Neither a student nor a traveller, he knew nothing of human character except as he saw it exhibited at home, and there he certainly sometimes found excuses for severity and even despotism. It is undeniable that he was endowed with a peculiar genius, but it was that kind of energetic genius which may raise a dexterous man from disgrace, defeat or reverses, rather than