Associated with much physical energy (I), these persons all exhibited much refinement of mind, a love for Arts and Letters, considerable astuteness and capacity of scheming; (II) they saw far and quickly, though deficient in deep philosophical powers of thought.
A rather more extended notice of some of the members of the sub-classes will be requisite; as, of course, their characters were less developed, and therefore less known, than those of the pure classes; but principally in order to point out the more minute touches, and, apparently, inconsistencies of character which illustrate the compound form of Nose.
CONSTANTINE.
(From a gem in the Florentine Museum.)
Constantine, having by a felicitous union of enterprise and cunning procured his elevation to the Imperial throne, and having defeated the last of his rivals to that splendid dignity, directed his attention to the concentration rather than the extension of his enormous empire, and sought, by building Constantinople, to divert the minds of the people from foreign war and intestine discord; while he at the same time fostered and encouraged the arts by the magnificent decoration of the new capital, to which he brought from Asia and Greece some of their most splendid productions.
Vigorous in war and active in peace, Constantine united all the characteristics of the Roman and the Greek. In war he successfully opposed both civil and foreign enemies, and made himself master of the most extended empire Rome had ever designated by her name. While in the vigour of his age, he moved with slow dignity, or with active vigilance, according to the various exigencies of peace and war, along the frontiers of his extensive dominions, and was always prepared to take the field either against a foreign or a domestic enemy.
But when he had gradually reached the summit of prosperity and the decline of life, he became sensible of the ambition of founding a city which might perpetuate the glory of his name, and he then exhibited all the capacities for the enjoyment of the luxuries of peace which had hitherto lain dormant in his mind. The mere building and fortifying a city, which would have satisfied the ambition of the coarser-minded Roman, was not his ambition only. He desired to decorate it with the highest efforts of human genius, and make it not only a monument of his military prowess, but also of his taste and refinement. For this purpose he founded schools of architecture to supply the disparity which his fine taste detected between the degenerate artists of his time and those of early Greece. The immortal productions of Phidias and Lysippus were dragged from other countries to adorn his capital; and, unmindful of the injustice, he despoiled the cities of Greece and Asia of their most valuable ornaments. The trophies of memorable wars, the objects of religious veneration, the most finished statues of the gods and heroes, of the sages and poets of ancient times, contributed to the splendid triumph of Constantinople.[[13]]
The character of Wolsey was very similar to that of Constantine. We might almost venture to assert that had he been placed in the same situation he would have pursued the same course. Yet the only part of their physiognomies which assimilates are their Noses. One remarkable circumstance in the early life of each identifies the two men, and exhibits in them the union of energy with acute tact. Constantine, half assured of his elevation to the Imperial throne, if he could join his father’s army and be present with him in case of his death, and having with difficulty obtained permission to visit his father from Galerius, (who dreaded the same event, and delayed the permission, until he believed it would be impossible for him to accomplish his object), travelled post through Bithynia, Dacia, Thracia, Pannonia, Italy and Gaul, with such speed that he reached Boulogne in the very moment when his father was preparing to embark for Britain, accompanied him, and finally, by military election, succeeded to his share of the Empire.
When Henry VII was looking out in his old age for a rich wife, he despatched Wolsey, to whom the vista of future eminence was just opening, to Flanders, to treat for the hand of a Princess of the Empire. Wolsey, conscious that in such affairs old age brooks no delay, started on his journey and had returned before the King knew that he was gone. By similar energy and shrewd scheming in pursuit of his own aggrandizement, very analogous to that by which Constantine secured the purple, Wolsey elevated himself to the highest subordinate station in his country, and then directed his mind rather to the extension of learning, the encouragement of art, the erection of splendid buildings, and the increase of domestic magnificence, than to an imitation of the warlike pursuits of the ancestors of his monarch; although the disposition of the latter strongly tended in that more physically energetic direction. The noble hall and chapel at Hampton Court and the remains of the colleges which Wolsey founded, still attest his magnificence, his taste, his liberality, and his respect for learning.
Richelieu was another Wolsey. It is a remarkable fact that the point of identity in actively seeking their own aggrandizement, which has been noticed between Wolsey and Constantine, occurs also in the early life of Richelieu. Having, from interested motives, abandoned the army (for which he was originally destined) for the Church, and the Pope having refused, on account of his extreme youth, to sanction his elevation to the Bishopric for the sake of which he had taken orders, he resolved to overcome this difficulty in person; and setting off for Rome, gave the Pontiff such convincing proofs of his talents, that he was consecrated Bishop forthwith, at twenty-two years of age, and thus laid the foundation of his future eminence.