BIOGRAPHY. 



511 



Biography, in an entirely new light. Hence the biographer will 

 s~ not find it easy to satisfy the public, nor always to 

 assure himself. f hat his authorities, although the best 

 the case admits, are entitled to unlimited confidence. 

 They form the pedestal of his work, but he cannot 

 conceal from himself that it is sometimes a very tot- 

 tering pedestal. There is one detect which is inse- 

 parable from biography, and must therefore be char- 

 ged upon the nature of the undertaking, and not up- 

 on any unskilfulness. in the execution. The causes 

 upon which the principal events of a man's life are 

 suspended, are often unknown even to himself. His 

 days have taken their complexion from influences, 

 of which he became sensible only in their remote 

 effects. Impressions were made at a time, and in a 

 manner, that prevented their being marked down ; but 

 though no minute of them is preserved, they have 

 left a bias upon the whole conduct of his life, perhaps 

 determined his pursuits, and decided his condition, 

 and his character. We are naturally inquisitive re- 

 specting the beginning of whatever has become ad- 

 mirable in its progress, and great in its completion. 

 The sources of the stream that inundated and enrich- 

 ed a wide extent of country, could not fail to become 

 an object of eager curiosity; and, in perusing the 

 lives of men who have explored new regions of science, 

 and discovered mines which successive generations 

 have worked without exhausting them of their trea- 

 sures, we cannot avoid wishing to see the tract by 

 which they advanced to .he discovery, and to trace it 

 to the very first step that was taken in such a happy 

 direction. The same curiosity inagreaterorlessdegree 

 attends the contemplation of every kind and measure 

 of eminence. We wish to see it in its causes ; to in- 

 . spect the spring, and compare its force when motion 

 commenced, and before it was communicated to the 

 long chain of instruments by which it acted with the 

 ultimate effect, when the whole machine was brought 

 into play. Such an analysis would not only be gra- 

 tifying to curiosity, but might lead to reflections of 

 great practical utility, especially in the important bu- 

 siness of education. It is seldom, however, that we 

 have the means of looking so narrowly into the me- 

 chanism of the lives of the most eminent persons, any 

 more than of those below them. Though the supe- 

 riority of their powers may have been, and probably 

 was always apparent to the sagacious observer, yet 

 the circumstance, or combination of circumstances, 

 which gave them their direction for the most part, 

 eludes the enquiry even of him whose life was passed 

 under its influence. The story of the fall of the ap- 

 ple, which is said to have directed the penetration of 

 a Newton to the law of gravitation, is well known ; 

 and whether it have authenticity or not, it has served 

 to show the eagerness of curiosity to possess such 

 facts. But as every man is a moral agent, and what- 

 ever be his powers, deserves to be contemplated prin- 

 cipally on account of his moral capacity and rela- 

 tions, the most interesting view that we can take 

 of a man's life, regards it 33 a process for the forma- 

 tion and developement of moral character. It is at 

 the same time the view which it is most difficult to 

 take with exactness, and exhibit with fidelity and en- 

 tireness. In men of eminence, and biography pro- 

 fesses to record the lives of such only, it is not too 



much to presume, that the grand features of the mo- Biography. 

 ral character will be marked with sufficient strength, 



to make it an easy task to present a faithful portrait. 

 The impression of their virtues or vices will be left 

 in their actions, the best and only certain memorial 

 of what they were, a memorial which every man is 

 able to decypher. But the philosopher and the mo- 

 ralist will wish to look much farther, not only to in- 

 fer the moral constitution of the mind from the ha- 

 bits and actions of the life, but to see that constitu- 

 tion in its elements, to trace it in its growth, and note 

 the influences under which it was expanded into 

 beauty, or distorted into deformity. He would see, 

 if it were permitted him, the moral habits in the pro- 

 cess and act, as it were, of crystallization, and pene- 

 trate the subtle and secret action of the mind by 

 which they were fashioned and defined, such as they 

 appear in the life. This insight, however, into the 

 actual impressions and motions of the mind, whilst 

 character was forming, the biographer can scarcely 

 be expected to obtain, since it is seldom that a re- 

 flecting man could give a complete and certain his- 

 tory of his own moral formation. He must be con- 

 tent to supply the deficiencies of recollection by con- 

 jecture ; to account for the changes, or determination 

 of character, by assigning probable causes, rather than 

 such as are proved by the memory of past conscious- 

 ness to have actually existed ; and if, instead of trust- 

 ing to recollection, he has made minutes of the feel- 

 ings, as well as the events of his life during the" whole 

 of its progress, there is still room for suspecting, 

 that some impressions, which were very influential in 

 producing character, escaped present and immediate 

 observation. These remarks furnish, perhaps, the best 

 apology for the prolix and minute detail of conversa- 

 tions, and occurrences not much distinguished for 

 wisdom and interest, which i3 found in some biogra- 

 phies. If this minute prolixity be pardonable in any 

 writer, it is in the historian of particular lives, who 

 must sometimes give what is little, and almost puerile, 

 and certainly tiresome, a place in his memoirs, in or- 

 der to set in its true light what is important, and full 

 of instruction. It is a fault too upon which few 

 are very severe, but critics by profession. The read- 

 er, finding himself amused, and interested in the most 

 trifling detail that regards men of extraordinary en- 

 dowment, easily forgives the fond partiality, the ha- 

 bitual garrulity, and even the communicative vanity 

 of the narrator, when these serve to make him better 

 acquainted with the subject of his tale. Nothwith- 

 standing the censure that has been incurred, and in 

 part merited by the biographer of Johnson, his volu- 

 minous Memorabilia have not found the fewer readers 

 for their particularity and chit-chat prolixity. We 

 are not apt to be violently disgusted with this sort of 

 minuteness when it is employed on the lives of extra- 

 ordinary men ; it is only when bestowed upon ordi- 

 nary persons, who did, or possessed nothing when 

 living, which could entitle them to occupy so much 

 space in the annals of the dead, that we turn from it 

 with the impatience that is natural to one who suffers 

 from impertinence. 



On comparing the different species of biography, 

 some persons have given an opinion in favour of me- 

 moirs, of which the subject is his own historian. Of 



