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BIOGRAPHY. 



Biography, events which it describes : it shews the soldier in the 

 v "" v "^ field, the statesman in the senate, and sometimes in 

 the cabinet ; but it does not lead us within the thres- 

 hold of his retirement, and exhibit him in the i 



ng relations of domestic life : it gives us the pub- 

 lic, but not the private man ; or no ir.ore of the pri- 

 vate man than is necessary to the elucidation of pul 

 transactions. When his principles, passions, and con- 

 duct, have borne with powerful influence upon the 

 great stream of human action, they are brought 

 nearer view, and subjected to closer inspection. Still 

 he is seen but at a distance in the great historic gal- 

 lery ; the finer shades of manners, from which ac- 

 tions and characters of the same class derive difference 

 and individuality, are seldom distinguished in this 

 general survey. Here biography steps in with pecu- 

 liar advantage ; it leads us into the familiar walks of 

 life ; it shews the monarch in his family, the hero in 

 the circle of his friends, the orator no longer declaim- 

 ing in the senate or the hall, but conversing on the 

 level of his associates, and unbending his eloquence 

 to negligence and playfulness ; it enables us to see 

 the great man divested of his state, the conqueror 

 descended from his car, the mock-patriot in his 

 sphere of private oppression, and the true one sup- 

 ported under public injustice and ingratitude by the 

 lofty consciousness of rectitude. 

 Its objects. Biography being one of the numerous depart- 

 ments of history, it has some objects common to them 

 all. It proposes to ascertain and record what is 

 true in fact, and to,this end it separates the fabulous 

 from the authentic, discharges the false colouring 

 of prejudice and party, weighs opposing testimonies, 

 exposes the representations of falsehood, and labours, 

 like the Cretanjudge, to administer impartial justice 

 to the dead. To accomplish this task, it is neces- 

 sary that the biographer be capable of patient inves- 

 tigation, and diligent research. Not only must his 

 love of truth raise him above the cloudy region of 

 prejudice and faction ; he must be endowed with no 

 ordinary share of sagacity, that he may detect spe- 

 cious fabrications, and through the distortions of 

 envy, and the exaggerations of flattery, discover what 

 is probable and credible. Another, and a principal 

 object of biography, is to record what is instructive hi 

 example. It has been remarked, and perhaps truly, 

 that there is no man, however confined his capacity 

 and sphere of action, a faithful narrative of whose life 

 would not furnish lessons of useful instruction; if it 

 disclosed nothing new in human nature, it might at 

 least serve to illustrate and confirm what was already 

 known. But since equal benefit is not to be derived 

 from every life, biography takes out of the long roll 

 of those who Formed the same journey be- 



fore us, the names of those, whose wisdom or whose 

 weakness, whose virtues or whose errors, are likely to 

 make the deepest and most salutary impression ; it 

 thus gives us an opportunity of enriching our own 

 minds with the treasures of experience, which h 

 been collected by others, and collected often at a great 

 price of labour and of pain. A question has been 

 made by the critic and moralist, respecting the epic 

 poem, whether it is necessary that the hero of the 

 piece, be distinguished for virtue, as well as for the 

 splendour of his qualities and exploits } and, though 



the poet has not always chosen or constructed his Bie 

 story in conformity to such a rule, it must be owned, t 

 that had he done so, he would have rendered an im- 

 iviee to tiie interests of virtue, instead of 

 leaving it, to say no more, very questionable, whe- 

 ther his productions have not, in some instances, mi- 

 1 against them. Unless the hero be encircled 

 it to dazzle even a (tit) 

 sight, his poem will soon be found to be any thing 

 but poetry ; and if a character intrinsically bau be 

 made powerfully to engage admiration, the princi- 

 ples of virtue must be much better understood, and 

 more generally, and at a much earlier age settled in 

 the mind than they are in fact, to prevent admira- 

 tion becoming sometimes the forerunner of imitation. 

 The same objection does not lie, however, against 

 making a man of depraved manners the subject of a 

 biographical memoir; for in such cases it is the fault 

 of the biographer, and not an inevitable result of that 

 species of writing, if the admiration of splendid ta- 

 lents is made to prevail over the detestation oi de- 

 pravity. Biography proposes to rescue what is me- 

 morable from the spoiis of time. In every age, men 

 of more than ordinary endowment, have risen above 

 the plain of their cotemporaries, who, by their ac- 

 tions or writings, have not only commanded an ex- 

 tensive influence over the times in which they lived, 

 and the people with whom they mingled ; but even 

 over succeeding ages, and over nations far removed 

 from the immediate sphere of their activity. De- 

 stroyers, or benefactors of mankind, they were the 

 volcano whose eruption carries desolation in its 

 course, or the heights that send their streams to 

 fructify the land, and give plenty to the inhabitants. 

 We contemplate the records of their lives as monu- 

 ments of generations which have been long extinct ; 

 and travelling up the stream of time, we gain a sort 

 of pre-existeuce to the short life which is allotted us 

 among our cotemporaries. We converse with the 

 greatest and wisest of our progenitors, and are some- 

 times privileged to enjoy a sort of confidential ac- 

 quaintance with them, to visit their solitude, and pe- 

 netrate the recesses of their minds, the principles 

 and motives of their conduct. It is also consolatory 

 to know, that though the common law of our nature 

 extends its rigorous necessity to the wisest and the 

 best, as well as to the least and worst of mortals, yet 

 every memorial of them shall not perish with their 

 lives ; their memory, if not their existence on earth, 

 shall be perpetuated, and shall kindle a kindred tiamc 

 in the breast of their successors, when they and their 

 ashes have long lost " their wonted fires." One end 

 of biography is to add to the stock of human know- 

 ledge, and of that part especially which it most con- 

 cerns all men to possess, the knowledge of human 

 nature. In the study of man, as well as of every 

 other species of being, if we would not substitute 

 fiction for reality, we must begin with particulars, 

 and proceed to what is general. The individual must 

 be known before it can be ranged under its proper 

 class. Nothing so much retarded the progress of 

 knowledge as the pursuit of a contrary method 

 through a long succession of centuries. The phi- 

 losopher was degraded into the mere schoolman, 

 and was employed in forcing and torturing natural 



