BIOGRAPHY. 
himself, and to he the publisher of his own 
merits ; which are, when the doing of it 
may be of considerable advantage either 
to himself or to others. Notwithstanding 
this high authority, the former case is un- 
questionably liable to great objections, be- 
cause a man is to be the judge in his own 
cause, and therefore very liable to exceed 
the limits of truth when his own interests 
are concerned, and when he wishes to ren- 
der himself conspicuous for virtue or talents. 
The ancients, however, had a peculiar me- 
thod of diverting the reader’s attention 
from themselves, when they had occasion 
to record their own actions, and of thus 
rendering what they said less invidious, 
which was, by speaking of themselves in 
the third person. Among the moderns a 
practice has been introduced, which cannot 
be too strongly reprobated, though sanc- 
tioned by men of great talent, integrity, 
and real worth, namely, of making the me- 
moirs of themselves the vehicle of abuse of 
their contemporaries ; every one of whom 
would, no doubt, be able to give a very 
different, and perhaps plausible reason, for 
the several actions which the biographer has 
undertaken to scrutinize and condemn. 
Dr. Priestley has constructed and pub- 
lished a “ Biographical Chart,” of which 
our plate is given as a specimen. This 
chart represents the interval of time be- 
tween the year 1200 before the Christian 
sera, and 1800 after Christ, divided by an 
equal scale into centuries. It contains 
about 2000 names of persons, the most dis- 
tinguished in the annals of fame, the length 
of whose lives is represented by lines 
drawn in proportion to their real duration, 
and terminated in such a manner as to cor- 
respond to the dates of their births and 
deaths. These names are distinguished in- 
to several classes by parallel lines running 
the whole length of the diart, the contents 
of each division being expressed at the end 
of it. The chronology is noted in the mar- 
gin, on the upper side, by the year before 
and after Christ, and on the lower by the 
same aera, and also by the succession of 
such kings as were most distinguished in the 
whole period. See Plate Biography. 
For a more full account we refer to Dr. 
Priestley’s description which accompanies 
the chart ; from which we shall make a 
short extract, that cannot fail to entertain 
the reader. 
“ Laborious and tedious as the compilation 
of this work has been (vastly more so than 
my first conceptions represented it to me), 
a variety of views were continually opening 
upon me during the execution of it, which 
made me less attentive to the labour. As 
these views agreeably amuse the mind, and 
may, in some measure, be enjoyed by a 
person who only peruses the chart, without 
the labour of compilation, I shall mention 
a few of them in this place. 
“ It is a peculiar kind of pleasure we re- 
ceive, from such a view as this chart exhi- 
bits, of a great nian, such as Sir Isaac New- 
ton, seated, as it were, in the circle of his 
friends and illustrious contemporaries. We 
see at once with whom he was capable of 
holding conversation, and in a manner (from 
the distinct view of their respective ages) 
upon what terms they might converse. And 
though it be melancholy, it is not unpleas- 
ing, to observe the order in which we here 
see illustrious persons go off the stage, and 
to imagine to ourselves the reflections they 
might make upon the successive departure 
of their acquaintance or rivals. 
“ We likewise see, insomemeasure, bythe 
names which precede any person, what ad- 
vantages he enjoyed from the labours and 
discoveries of others ; and, by those which 
follow him, of what use his labours were to 
his successors. 
“ By the several void spaces between such 
groups of great men, we have a clear idea 
of the great revolutions of all kinds of 
science, from the very origin of it ; so that 
the thin and void places in the chart are, in 
fact, no less instructive than the most crowd- 
ed, in giving us an idea of the great inter- 
ruptions of science, and the intervals at 
which it hath flourished. The state of all 
the divisions appropriated to men of learn- 
ing, is, for many centuries before the revi- 
val of letters in this western part of the 
world, exactly expressed by this following 
line of Virgil : 
Apparent rari nantes in gurgite vaslo. 
But we see no void spaces in the division of 
statesmen, heroes, and politicians. The 
world hath never wanted competitors for 
empire and power, and least of all in those 
periods in which the sciences and the arts 
have been the most neglected. 
“But the noblest prospect of this nature is 
suggested by a view of the crowds of names 
in the divisions appropriated to the arts and 
sciences in the two last centuries. Here 
all the classes of renown, and, I may add, 
of merit, are full; and a hundred times 
as many might have been admitted, of 
equal attainments in knowledge with their 
