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BIOGRAPHY. 



I'.ii'zraphy. been accustomed to venerate ; and though the man 

 v ~ ' was horn " not for an age," or a sect, but for all man- 

 kind, his name is forced into the service of particular 

 bodies of men, and made to stand as a sort of autho- 

 ritative signature to certain sets of opinion. The vio- 

 lence which is done in such instances to historical 

 truth, is not the whole of the evil ; the purpose for 

 which evidence is suborned, and testimony perverted, 

 is condemned by every friend of truth. Few causes 

 have thrown such impediments in the way of en- 

 quiry, and given such stability to error, as the impo- 

 sition of names. When authority is opposed to ar- 

 gument, reason must he silent ; from that moment it 

 is put out of court ; the cause is referred to arbitrary 

 decision ; it is to be determined not by an appeal to 

 the common understanding of mankind, but to the 

 judgment of one whose powers of discrimination 

 might not exceed, and whose means of information 

 probably fell below those which are possessed by 

 some of his successors. But the most perverted use 

 is made of this kind of history, when it is employed 

 in the service of malice and detraction. Not only is 

 living excellence exposed to the persecution of envy ; 

 its malignity has dared to penetrate the sanctuary of 

 the tomb. Long after the curtain has been dropt, 

 the hiss of jealousy or malevolence has been prolong- / 

 ed, and though it may have been drowned at first by 

 general applause, it has found its time to be heard, 

 and that too often with effect. The honest and able 

 biographer holds the balance of departed merit, and 

 feels his office to be one of high responsibility ; but 

 when the libeller of the dead places himself on the 

 bench, envy usurps the seat of justice, merit is robbed 

 of its reward, the chambers of the dead are violated, 

 and sacrilege is added to injustice. This abuse of 

 biography is the more dangerous, because the detrac- 

 tor will never want an audience as long as envy and 

 ill-nature are found among mankind ; the little-mind- 

 ed will always crowd around him, and it is well if 

 mediocrity does not lend a patient ear to representa- 

 tions, which seem to give it elevation by lowering the 

 standard of comparison. The faults which have been 

 mentioned have little claim upon indulgence ; but 

 there are errors incident to biography which are en- 

 titled to greater lenity. It is natural that the writer 

 should contract something like a friendship for the 

 subject of his memoirs ; and it is no wonder, if, un- 

 der its influence, he is sometimes tempted to produce 

 too flattering a picture. Not contented to set down 

 nought in malice, he may be bribed by his feelings to 

 suppress what ought to be set down in justice, to 

 throw a veil over failings, and place merit in a light 

 too strong for truth. This is a weakness which it 

 requires as much apathy as strength of mind to regard 

 with extreme severity, especially if the historian was 

 the associate and friend of the subject of his history : 

 the partiality is amiable, and though our judgment 

 must condemn it, the heart of every good man will 

 plead in palliation of the offence. Still it is a weak- 

 ness and an error, and one which is not innocent in 

 its effect, whatever it may be in its source: by shaking 

 the authority of the whole relation, it frustrates the 

 design of it, if that design was, as it ought to be, 

 moral improvement. It may also be directly preju- 

 dicial to the mind in which right principles of action 



are not fully established ; for it is too much to ex- Biography. 

 pect, that the relaxation of rigour which has been *' ' 



admitted in judging the actions of others, should have- 

 no influence in the judgment we pass upon our own : 

 the apologist of other men is not likely to be a very 

 severe critic upon himself ; it is enough that he is 

 not more lenient to his own failings than to theirs ; 

 he cannot in reason be required to pronounce a more 

 rigorous sentence when his own cause is determined. 

 If the historian has his partialities and prejudices, 

 all other men have also theirs. Nations are not free 

 from them any more than individuals, and there are 

 some to which duration, and general suffrage, have 

 given a sort of prescriptive right to govern. It is 

 the duty of the biographer to be upon his guard 

 against the influence of public prejudice scarcely less 

 than his own. Though it may be presumed, that 

 the judgment which has been passed upon characters 

 by successive generations, or by a great majority of 

 any single generation, has reason on its side, this must 

 not be laid down as a universal and infallible rule. 

 There is a fashion both in praise and censure, which 

 one age transmits to the next, till it has acquired the 

 sanction of antiquity : it is not easy to account other- 

 wise for the manner iu which some names are record- 

 ed in history, one being the signal for extravagant 

 panegyric, and another for unqualified ccnsurc,though 

 nothing is produced in evidence respecting either, 

 which can justify such warmth of applause or con- 

 demnation. The memory, as well as the lives of men, 

 is often attended with a good or ill fortune, that 

 seems to preside over the reputation after death as it 

 did over the condition in life, with little regard to the 

 true measure of merit or demerit in either. In these 

 instances, the biographer must dare to oppose the 

 stream of opinion ; a duty that requires both forti- 

 tude and address, whether the opinion respect persons 

 or principles : and as every error has its own anta- 

 gonist, he who undertakes this labour, is also himself 

 in danger of being enticed by the love of singularity, 

 and of that notice which is attracted by it, to affect 

 new views of characters and actions, widely differing 

 from those which are commonly received, but differ- 

 ing without sufficient evidence and reason. Of this 

 affectation, a late eminent writer, Lord Ortord, has 

 been accused ; and notwithstanding the ingenuity with 

 which he has added probability to novelty in many 

 of his biographical views, the charge will scarcely be 

 thought to be altogether unfounded. 



Iu taking a survey of the difficulties that press up- j ts lm . 

 on biography in particular, the first which presents avoidable 

 itself, arises from the nature of the authority upon defects, 

 which a principal part of the biography must often 

 rest. National history can refer to national archives, 

 and public documents are the vouchers of public 

 events ; but the principal facts in biography, from 

 their nature, will be frequently supported only by 

 private testimony and traditional report. These are 

 authorities which are not always accessible, and when 

 they are so, they are not always the most intelligible 

 or secure. Yet they may be the best, and indeed the 

 only witnesses that can be called in, upon the faith of 

 whose representations new facts are to be produced, 

 false statements to be corrected, some matters of ge- 

 neral belief to be controverted, and others to be set 





