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TEXAS STATE LIBRARY
viewed 72 by Judge Burnet, the first President of Texas, whose modera- tion in confining himself to refuting, as far as he had cognizance, the perverted recital of Sam Houston's doings - fairly entitles him to the same historical rank as his illustrious namesake, whose "History of his own Times" elucidates a period as interesting to Americans as to British readers. The Judge dismisses, with a caustic remark or two, the idle legend of young Houston's incredible prowess, and equally refrains from im- pugning the pretentions to honesty and consistency of the self-styled hero in his terms of Office, during which, - he, the Judge was out of public service, so that after the scratch at San Jacinto, the Munchausen President expands in terms of uncontested egotism. Had Houston been content to depict the unfortunate creature, his "fearless father',, and that "Spartan dame", his mother, at all like other persons, he might have spared himself some verbal reminders; however, they will not be repeated - for the "dignity, commanding bearing and high intellect" of his ancestors, are aristocratical features, which if found to have been handed down to the Son, go far to estab- lish the divine right, and -heavenly origin, which hereditary merit gives Houston's "indomitable" propensity for unchecked power, a sanction that Democracy repudiates. Houston twice impresses upon his readers the enduring effect made on his spirit by the Iliad, a poem where the immortal machinery, atrocities of cruelty, treachery and imprel?Ilability of chicken-hearted heroes, under the protection of demoniac Immortals, afford a clue to the carrer of the modern aspirant. Sam's elopement from the store, connected with his presents to-the . indians, his debts and their liquidation, are matters that expose his early adoption of that "wild liberty" of financeering, and contempt for Euclid's vigorous theory, from which Texas afterwards derived a notoriety, far from covetable. If Houston's mother used any such warnings against cowardice as he says she did, there is no doubt, they were dictated by her intimate knowledge of his foible. Sam too often reckons upon the reluctance that sedate men have to appear in print; and has, with unaccountable imprudence, dilated upon his prowesi;i at the Horse Shoe - a matter whereupon he has received as much ridicule as could well fall to the lot of a "retiring young soldier" of his rank in the army. His ex- acerbation of this, and other instances of slight and neglect, whilst in a helpless condition, are contradictory of the usual demeanor of sol- diers to a wounded comrade, who has worked out any title whatever to their esteem. Oenl. Jackson being- dead, denies nothing that Sam ehooses to as- sert, but merits inferential praise for the discreet secrecy of his friend- ship. Sam's adulation was fulsome and persevering;- publicly, it obtained for him such riotice, as could not in common courtesy be re- "Thie review is in the Texas State Library bound with a Life of Sam Houa- ton, published in Washinjlton and written by J. T. Towers. Burnet says it bears the same characteritics of Sam HO'UBton and• His Republic, by C. E. Lester, and that Houston was "virtually the author of it."
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