Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. II.djvu/221

MILLARD FILLMORE 173 more just. All his acts, whether daily and com mon or deliberate and well considered, were marked with modesty, justice, and sincerity. What Speaker Onslow said of Sir Robert Walpole was equally true of President Fillmore: "He was the best man from the goodness of his heart, to live with and under, of any great man I ever knew." His was an eminently kindly nature, and the last time the writer saw him, in 1873, he was relieving, with a liberal hand, the necessities of an old and unfor tunate friend. He was a sound, practical Chris tian "without knowing it," as Pope remarked of a contemporary. His temper was perfect, and it is doubtful if he left an enemy on earth. Frederick the Great announced with energy that "Peter the First of Russia, to govern his nation, worked upon it like aquafortis upon iron." Fillmore, to win his way, like Lincoln and Garfield, from almost hope less poverty to one of the most eminent positions of the world, showed equal determination, often times working, for weeks and months together, till long past midnight, which happily his powers of physical endurance permitted him to do with im punity, and affording a fine illustration of the proud boast of our country, that its loftiest honors are the legitimate objects of ambition to the hum blest in the land, as well as to those favored by the gifts of fortune and high birth. See Chamberlain s "Biography of Millard Fillmore" (Buffalo, 1856) ;