158 INTRODUCTION. 



is to be ascribed to the peculiarity of the subject that such an account, given with 

 even the partiality of private friendship, has resulted in diminishing the interest 

 which was universally felt in regard to colonel Burr so long as he lived, and which 

 perhaps would have long survived him if his life had remained unwritten. The 

 autobiography of colonel Trumbull throws light upon some portions of our revolu- 

 tionary history, and upon many public characters during that period, as well as 

 upon the progress of the fine arts. Henry C. Van Schaack has performed a filial 

 duty with great propriety in his life of his father, Peter Van Schaack. The 

 writer's object was to vindicate the purity of motive of that eminent lawyer in 

 his neutrality during the revolution. The work adds very interesting materials 

 for the full history of the great conflict, which yet remains to be written. 



The National Portrait Gallery of distinguished Americans, by James Herring, 

 consisting of four volumes, embellished with one hundred and forty portraits, is 

 a work creditable to the literature and to the arts of the country. We can only 

 notice, in passing, De Witt Clinton's Sketch of the Life of Philip Livingston, and 

 the same author's Memoir of the Life of George Clinton, and similar sketches of 

 Dr. Hugh Wilhamson and Dr. Bard, by David Hosack ; of John Wells, by Wil- 

 liam Johnson ; and of general James Clinton, by William W. Campbell. William 

 L. Stone's account of the noted fanatic and religious impostor Matthias, contains 

 many facts which will be useful to the student in mental philosophy. William 

 Dunlap has left valuable materials for biographical literature, in his History of 

 the American Theatre, and also in his History of the Arts of Design. 



We must acknowledge and lament our deficiencies in female biography. Still, 

 what works of that kind we possess, are exceedingly interesting. Among these is 

 a memoir of Mrs. Ann Elizabeth Bleecker, published in 1793, by her daughter 

 Margaretta V. Faugeres. We are indebted to Mrs. Grant of Scotland for the 

 Life of an "American Lady," by which designation was intended Mrs. Schuyler, 

 the wife of colonel Schuyler of Albany. The work is not without interest as 

 mere biography, but it is also exceedingly instructive concerning the manners 

 and customs which prevailed in the colony during the period which was included 



