CRITICAL NOTICES OP NEW PUBLICATIONS. 145 



over the Deist whose heart hath hitherto resisted the truth, and 

 who has yet to learn, and feel, and rejoice, that Christ is the way, 

 and the resurrection, and the life. 



BoswelVs Life of Johnson, edited by Crofton Croker. London : 

 Murray, 1836. 



In the w^hole circle of literature, there are no books more eagerly 

 inquired for, or universally read, than biographies. Every one feels 

 a personal interest in the lives of eminent persons ; for if their vir- 

 tues and talents excite our envy or ambition, their foibles are, at 

 least, an apology for our own. While we recognize feelings which 

 we possess in common, our sympathies are spontaneously rendered 

 to those, who have elevated us by a correspondence of habits and 

 opinions. Biography, therefore, must necessarily please, when it 

 becomes an offering to our vanity. 



But, like other marketable wares, the supply increases with the 

 demand, until curiosity is satiated, and vanity rises superior to com- 

 pliment. Biography — like embalming among the Eg>'ptians — 

 should be reserved as the sacred privilege of the illustrious, not of 

 birth, but of mind: the homage due to the aristocracy of intellect, 

 is degraded by an indiscriminate assumption, and under the plea of 

 Jriendship, has become a premium for stupidity, wherein dullness 

 celebrates itself. To observe the biographical fecundity, it might 

 be supposed that such w^orks were the common offerings to the dead, 

 produced without cost and received without censure : l3ut these way- 

 side monuments perish with the same facility as they arise ; while 

 the monuments of Genius alone are preserved undecayed, and their 

 inscriptions religiously renewed as the birth-right of future genera- 

 tions. 



Biography has this correspondence with art — it is the portraiture 

 of the soul — and however exalted be the character, however sublime 

 the genius, however dignified the virtues, it rests in the ability of 

 the artist to ennoble or degrade his subject. The foibles or eccen- 

 tricities of character are too often magnified by dwelling on thera, 

 until (like the Vetch of Cicero) a man is known by his mode, rather 

 than by his mind — made notorious for a singularity of habit, rather 

 than celebrated for the highest moral excellencies and intellectual 

 attainments. Thus, by the touch of the pen, the brightness of fame 

 is clouded for ever, except with t\iefew who can read with a clearer 

 eye the secrets of nature — who can find an apology for the inconsis- 

 tencies of a Swift, the irregularities of a Goldsmith, the irritability 

 of a Pope, or the gloomy savageness of a Johnson — the few who 

 can pass lightly over failings that were without sin. 



To write the life of a great man, calls for great powers. It is 

 not enough that the features be correctly drawn ; there is the play 

 of a thousand changing expressions to pourtray, which can alone 

 constitute a faithful image. It is not when arrayed in " purple 



NO. XV., VOL. IV. K 



